A Certain Magical Friendship - MIRROR NOISE
by Sora with an S
Summary: Sequel to Context SHIFT. Nightmare Moon had been defeated. Everypony had returned home from the world of 'A Certain Magical Index'. But the portal is still open. And when a certain world begins to probe a friendly world, both will have to come together to answer the question: are clones people?
1. Remember the events so far

There was a party well underway in Ponyville.

If you were to flag down a passing pony and ask them why this was so, most would tell you that it was merely the Summer Sun Celebration, slightly delayed this year.

If you hunted down a smaller number of ponies who had been in right places at the right times, they would tell you that they were celebrating the defeat of Nightmare Moon, the legendary Mare in the Moon. (Some would know that somepony named 'Luna' had been rescued from her evil clutches, or something. They were very fuzzy on the details.)

Most ponies were content with one of those explanations. They trusted that they would hear an official explanation for the weirdness of the night in due time. For now, they just wanted to party.

But if you asked a much smaller group, you'd get a much more detailed story.

A story about how Nightmare Moon, breaking out of her seal after a thousand years of banishment, had descended to the Earth. They would tell you how she had banished her sister Celestia to the same moon she had just escaped from, intending to forever shroud the world in Eternal Night.

But there had been one pony present last night who had been from out-off-town. While everypony else had been panicking at the defeat of Celestia, Satin had panicked in a slightly different way.

While most of the ponies had wanted to run away, Satin had a particular destination in mind to run to: a mysterious glowing hole, just inside the boundaries of the Everfree forest. From there, things had gotten _weird_.

They'd jumped into this hole, and fallen so far that by the time they reached the other end, they were falling _up_. And on the other side of that hole had laid a city full of people with talents and abilities that none of those ponies had ever heard from before. They had helped defeat Nightmare Moon and her minions, and the ponies had helped defeat an aggressor from 'over there'.

But at the moment, five of those mares couldn't care less about what was on the other side of the hole. They were full concerned about what was on _this_ side.

Because, after everything had been said and done, Twilight _still_ wasn't attending the party.

"Twwwiiiilllliiiigghhhtt." Pinkie Pie whined. "Come oooonnnnn. Most of the ponies have gone home already. Even the princesses have left! If you don't come now, there won't be a party left for you to attend!"

"The princess is gone?" Twilight's voice came out slightly slurred, before she caught herself and shook her head vigorously. "I mean, the princesses are gone?" She corrected herself, sounding much more awake this time. Having two princesses was going to take some getting used to. (Well, there was Cadence, but she had only just finished school a year ago, so nopony thought of her as a 'real' princess yet.)

"Yup." Applejack said. "Said ya could stay as long as you liked, an' come back to Canterlot when you're ready."

"Oh." Twilight said. "That's nice."

Rarity moved closer, inspecting Twilight's muzzle close-up. "Dear, your adorable little dragon said that you haven't slept since the night before last. If you aren't going to join the party –"

"Which you should!" Pinkie insisted.

"– then you should be sleeping, dear."

Twilight squinted at the three mares confronting her. "…haven't you been awake since then as well?"

"Ya can't sleep though a Pinkie Pie party, sugercube." Applejack said. "S'not possible."

"Why would anypony want to sleep though a party?" Pinkie looked honestly confused.

"Well, I appreciate your concern girls, but I can't come." Twilight shook her head. "That 'hole' in the Everfree – something isn't right about it, and I need to figure out what."

"Twilight, dear, the princess – I mean, princess Celestia already said that she'd take care of that."

"Princess Celestia conjured a fence around the hole with a sign saying 'Danger: probably magic'." Twilight deadpanned.

"'xactly." Applejack nodded. "So if anypony falls in, it's their own fault."

Twilight turned around, looking down at the scroll she had been reading when the other mares had come in. "But there's more to it than that." She insisted. "Listen. I wrote down what happened last night, and it doesn't make any sense!"

Applejack opened her mouth to say ' _Leave magic to the unicorns and go to sleep_ ', remembered who she was talking to, and closed it again.

"You mean like how we saw the sun rise twice, but the ponies here only saw it rise once?" Pinkie noted.

Twilight turned her head back just enough so that she could look Pinkie in the eye as she nodded. "More than that. 'Over here', Satin knew the legend of Nightmare Moon even better than I did, but on 'the other side', she didn't know anything about it!"

Rarity frowned. "Yes, that was rather unusual, wasn't it?"

"And Applejack, you got hurt fighting a Shadowbolt, right? Do you remember how you got better?"

"Nope." Applejack answered. "Next thin' ah remember, we were bein' swarmed by th' Nightmare Forces."

Twilight turned around, facing the three of them again. "Well, I asked Fluttershy, and she said that she healed you with magic!"

Applejack's mouth fell open, as did Rarity's and Pinkie Pie's. "Come again?"

Quite aside from the fact that Fluttershy lacked a horn to be casting spells with, there had been exactly _one_ pony in the last _millennium_ who could cast healing spells. That was a _super_ -rare Talent.

"I know!" Twilight exclaimed. "Fluttershy couldn't explain it either – she clearly remembered healing you, but she couldn't explain how!"

"Land sakes!" Applejack swore. "Tha' _is_ weird."

"That's still not the weirdest part."

"There's _more?_ " Pinkie, Applejack and Rarity said together.

"Girls, do you remember the name of where we were, on the other side of the hole?"

The three mares opposite Twilight looked uncertain.

"I was just thinking of it as 'Satin's home'." Pinkie admitted.

"Did anypony actually say…?" Applejack asked.

"We all had other things on our minds, darling." Rarity said. "Where we were exactly didn't seem so important."

"Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy remembered." Twilight said. "They called it 'the Academy'. And they both remember being shocked to find that out, though they can't remember why now."

Pinkie, Applejack and Rarity shared uncertain looks. "I, uh, don't think we've every heard of a place like tha'." Applejack admitted.

"You wouldn't have." Twilight said, her tone serious. "Seeing as how it doesn't exist."

"Doesn't…? Darling, you must be pulling my leg." Rarity protested. "We were all there mere hours ago. You can't just say that we were in a place that isn't real."

Twilight's head swung around to look at the bookshelf behind her. "I checked everything – ' _Great schools of the world_ ', ' _Where to get research done_ ', ' _Grand faculties of the globe'_ … I even had Spike send for ' _The complete guide to Neighpon_ ' from the Canterlot library. Girls, none of the academies in the world look anything like where we were!"

"So they got the name wrong." Applejack said.

Twilight shook her head. "No. Something is wrong with that hole." Telekinetically gathering up the stacks of books on the table, Twilight started walking up the stairs. "And I'm going to figure out what!"

Entering her bedroom, Twilight dramatically slammed the door shut.

"Hole's not going anywhere, though." Applejack told the door. "Honestly, ya need ta sleep."

The door, being a door, did not answer her.

"Well, shoot."

"She doesn't want to attend my party?" Pinkie sounded slightly shell-shocked.

"I'm sure she _wants_ to, dear." Rarity sighed. "It's just that she thinks this is more urgent, though. It's not like she's forgotten there's a party going on."

Pinkie's wide eyes slowly narrowed in confusion. "Forgotten there's a…?" She gasped suddenly in a huge intake of air. "That's right! I almost forgot! I kinda need to got back and check on our new friends because they also haven't come to the party and actually I'm not sure they can read Equish so they might not have understood my invitations and they've gone all this time without a _party_ , and –"

" _Breath_ _e_ , Pinkie." Applejack interrupted, which seemed to break Pinkie out of her run-on sentence.

"Right! I'll be right back!" Pinkie dashed out the door of the Golden Oak library so fast she left a smoky after-image.

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Honestly, that mare."

"Wait a minute." Rarity said. "When she said 'our new friends', you don't think she meant the ones _over there_ , do you?"

Applejack and Rarity shared a worried glance.

* * *

"...those are your orders. Do you understand, 9748?"

"Misaka understands, Misaka replies as she begins to prepare for deployment."


	2. Send out the invitations

-Ding, dong-

That was the sound that hundreds of students had been waiting for all day.

It was the joyous sound that heralded days of unparalleled fun and freedom. It signalled an end to the oppressive system of indoctrination and unpaid labour. (In their minds, at least.)

In other words, it was the bell that signalled the end of the school year.

The day had started off with a disastrous phenomenon from well outside normal understanding, so you would have been forgiven if you had thought that school would have been cancelled for the day. Unfortunately, the grown-ups that ran the city had decided that the best way to keep order would be to impose normal routine over the day. As everyone went through the motions of normalcy, their thoughts were guided onto their usual, everyday paths.

It also gave time for various stories to spring up, each one attempting to explain the global 'blackout'. They ranged from undetected meteors causing an impromptu eclipse to an experimental countermeasure against solar flares.

For the first time in her life, Saten was in the unusual position of knowing the true source of the rumours that flooded the message boards. Her fingers itched to type out the true explanation, and tell the world exactly what had happened. But…

 _If I do that… would anybody believe me? And more importantly… what would happen if they did?_

Somehow, Saten knew, one lady had caused the sun to fail to shine one morning. One miserable, pathetic human being had stretched our her hand and snapped her fingers, and the _unfathomable_ power of the sun had abruptly been extinguished.

That was not the sort of thing you went to school the next day and forgot about.

Saten, like all the students in Academy City, dreamed of one day being a powerful Esper. Earlier this week, she'd gotten the chance to meet one of her idols, the #3 Railgun who had worked her way from Level 1 to Level 5. Saten had scoured the internet, searching for something – for someone to tell her what she was doing wrong, why all her efforts hadn't raised her Level above 0.

Now though, the day of attendance at school had given time for the idea to take root that even if she _found_ the mysterious Level Upper, that she would forever remember that snap of the fingers with a chill down her spine.

Such melancholic thoughts followed Saten out of her classroom and down to the front gate.

There, she stopped and stared.

Standing just outside the front gate, there was a girl who would best be described as 'pink'. Pink hair, pink wristbands, pink jacket. She stood out from the crowd so much that she seemed almost unreal, like finding a four leaf clover in a desert.

{Mirrors unlace the undone doughnut.} Pinkie Pie said, tapping her foot.

{Oh.} Saten managed. {Is this about the party?}

{Blue apricot season.}

{Look, that's not… um….} Saten switched languages. "Par-tay?"

{Honeysuckle!}

For some reason, Pinkie seemed to insist on speaking in her nonsense Japanese. Admittedly, Saten's English was only just above the 'pass' level expected of a first year middle school student, but now they were down to pantomiming.

{Party?} Saten tried again, moving her hands like she was pulling the string on an invisible popper.

{Counter insert book certificate!} Pinkie smiled.

Saten sighed.

* * *

{Pllllleeeeaasssseee, Sissy! Punish me! Torment me! Grind me under your heel! Do soooommmmethiiiiinnnnng!}

{No! Go away, you pervert!}

{But I abandoned you in your hour of need! I fled and did not return until the battle was over!}

{You were just enacting the plan you had already made to run and get help. You didn't know that the battle would end before you made it back, and there wasn't anything you could have done if you had stayed!}

{So you're saying I'm so insignificant it doesn't matter if I stay or go?! Waaaahhhhhaaaa!}

{You're just going to cling to me no matter what I say, aren't you?! Ow, ow, ow!}

A few of the other Tokiwadai girls stopped to listen and stare at the public spectacle, but the throbbing vein on Misaka's forehead convinced them to move on whenever her glare shifted to them.

{Honestly, you've been like this all day!} Misaka roughly pulled Kuroko to her feet. {I'm not angry at all, so just get over it!}

{But I committed an unforgivable offence, Sissy! I abandoned my rightful place at your side!}

{Technically, I abandoned you first…}

Misaka realised this was the wrong thing to say immediately, but Kuroko had already doubled the volume of tears and snot running down her face.

Misaka wanted to groan (or better yet, roll her eyes), but first she had to calm down her overemotional roommate.

{Look, Kuroko, it's fine. No one got hurt.}

-sob- {Re-really?}

Misaka paused, putting a finger on her chin. {Well, except for the part where you stabbed me, I guess. But those have already started to heal, see? …eh?}

An aura of gloom had settled over Kuroko as she curled up into the fetal position.

Misaka pressed a hand into her face and sighed.

She was saved from having to try and salvage the conversation from the ringing of her phone.

{Is – is that the Gekota theme song?}

{Did she borrow a younger sibling's phone or something? Why would her ringtone be so kiddy?}

Misaka gave out more death glares until the next wave of passers-by moved on, and answered her phone with a tense {Yeah, what?}.

{Um.} The person on the other end of the line was taken aback by her tone. {Is this a bad time?}

{Saten?} Misaka looked down at Kuroko, who had started chanting 'I hurt Sissy' to herself quietly.

Misaka turned around and cupped her hand around the phone. {Nah, it's fine.}

{If it's fine, why are you whispering?}

{Just go!}

{Um, right! So! You remember the pink American girl from last night?}

{Kinda? It's not like we were ever introduced to each other…}

{Well, um, she's invited those of us who were there last night to a party.}

{What, she wants us to all meet up and sign karaoke together?}

{No, um, like, an _American_ party. With, you know, cake and stuff.}

Misaka blinked, running the idea through her head. {Hand on a second.} She put a hand over her phone's receiver. {Hey, Kuroko?}

{I hurt Sissy, I hurt – yes?} For the moment, the light of intelligent thought re-entered Kuroko's eyes.

{You wanna go eat cake somewhere?}

Kuroko's pigtails stuck straight up in the air like she had just been electrocuted. In the span of an eye-blink, she was no longer kneeling, but now stood ramrod-straight directly in front of Misaka.

{S-s-s-s-sissy! I – I'm not sure I'm ready for this stage in our relationship!}

Misaka felt a chill down her spine. {Whatever you're thinking, I'm sure its wrong!}

{Oh, but I'm simply a mess! This will not do at all! I must look my absolute best for my first date with Sissy!}

{It's not a date! …and she's gone. Great.}

With great dread, Misaka raised her phone back up to her mouth. {Kuroko and I are coming.}

{…are you sure you're okay?}

{I might need to shock a certain idiot a couple times, that's all.}

{Oh! Right! About that! Misaka, do you know how to contact that boy from last night?}

* * *

Touma Kamijou's face was down as he walked down the street.

With school out, he really should have been skipping down the road, jumping for joy, but his late arrival at school today had upset his suspiciously young-looking homeroom teacher. Rather than give him detention, like a normal teacher, Ms Komoe had instead tearfully wondered if she was trying hard enough as a teacher. Seeing that sorrow-stricken face had made his classmates give him death-glares all day. It had gotten so bad that Touma was worried they were going to jump him on his way home and beat him up.

Just his luck.

On his way home he had been struck by the impulse to go out and spurge a little at a restaurant, but the prospect of a second mouth to feed had sucked that impulse down of him. Instead, he had stopped by a supermarket and stocked up on pretty much everything that was on sale… which wasn't much.

Touma sighed, but hefted his shopping bag behind his back and started climbing up the stairs to his apartment. The building hadn't been on fire when he got back, so that was a plus.

Wait. His wall still had a giant hole knocked in it. Drat. _Knowing my luck, it'll pour with rain tonight_ _._ Touma thought sourly. Academy City's giant supercomputer, Tree Diagram, could predict weather down to the second, but Touma felt that even if it predicted clear skies a lone storm cloud would appear just to drench his apartment.

{I'm home.} He called out, feeling slightly foolish for doing so. Still, he'd given Index his keys, and his spare was inside the room. If it turned out she hadn't taken up his offer, he was going to have to try to climb in the hole in the wall, suspended as it was over a sheer drop.

To his pleasant surprise, however, the door opened, revealing Index behind it. {…um, welcome home?}

Touma looked the nun up and down, narrowing his eyes and rubbing his chin.

{…what?} Index squirmed under his gaze.

{Hmm. No, it would definitely be cuter if you were wearing an apron.}

{Goodbye.}

{No, wait! Don't shut my own door in my face!}

It was a bit of a struggle, but Touma managed to make it past the threshold.

His apartment was small – it consisted of just a bedroom/living area with a tiny kitchen attached and a bathroom. It wasn't really built to entertain guests, and there was a definite sense of snugness as two people and a kitten manoeuvred around each other.

Touma moved into the kitchen and dropped his cargo down on the bench. Index walked in after him, her eyes flickering between his face and the bags of food.

The apartment became very quiet as Touma put the food away, the atmosphere only broken up by the pained winces Touma gave as he saw how much of his food Index had eaten while he was away.

Neither of them really knew what to say to each other. Touma didn't _regret_ offering Index a place to stay, he just… didn't know where to go from here. Did she have some goal she could reach once she had time to plan it out? Or if nothing changed, would she really be content with sleeping in a random boy's apartment forever?

Index was just as uncertain. She had been planing to take advantage of a sanctuary, but in a _church_. Index knew how churches worked. When they extended out their hand to their needy, they did so because their divine lord had instructed them to do so. But a look though Touma's apartment made Index quite sure that Touma wasn't religious, so there was no way to be sure how long his charity would hold out for. Even if his hand had shown her nothing but kindness so far (and for some reason, the bruise on her face throbbed as she thought that), there was no guarantee that she could depend on him forever.

Touma had almost finished unpacking the groceries when the kitten walked in and sat down next to Index's robes, looking up and meowing as if to say _Well somebody say something!_

{Um.} Touma started hesitantly. {I see you washed the blood out of your clothes.}

{Hm? Oh, yeah.} Index spun around, showing off her sparkling white-and-gold habit. It had gotten soaked on blood during the incident of the previous night, but didn't show any traces of that anymore. {Leaving the blood to soak into it would just attract ill-will. There's a limit to what I can do as a nun-in-training, but I should be able to prevent the more common curses.}

Touma scratched his head. {Um…}

{That reminds me – I wanted to consecrate the building, but I need permission from the owner.} Index continued.

{Yeah, um… this building is kinda owned by Academy City.}

{Drat.} Index frowned. {I might be able to do something with the _Feng shui_ of the room, but I'd need to rearrange the walls –}

{Not gonna happen.}

Index scowled. {Well, we have to do _something_ , or we'll be swarming in magicians before the week's over.}

{Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that…} Touma finished packing food into cupboards, and turned to face Index. {I saw a bit of what the guys who were after you could do. Those were quite clearly Esper powers.}

{No, that was magic.} Index corrected, as though she was disputing what colour they had been wearing.

Touma felt a little out of his depth. Index was speaking in square boxes, but his mind only had round holes to put them in. {Um, do you mean they're a member of a science cult?}

{Kindly do not refer to the Church of England as a 'science cult'.}

The deliberate calm in Index's voice told Touma he was skating on thin ice.

{Church of England?} He asked, hoping to move on from what was apparently a blunder. {I thought you said your church was Nessis… um, Nessisar –} He stumbled around the foreign word.

{Necessarius.} Index finished for him. {Which is the 0th Parish of the Church of England.}

{What's a parish?}

{Do they not teach you _anything_ important in this country?}

-Knock, knock, knock-

All three heads, human and cat, turned to stare at the door. Touma and Index then shared a look.

-Knock, knock, knock-

{Hello?} Came a girl's voice, speaking in slightly muffled voice.

Touma found himself getting uneasy. That did not sound like Tsuchimikado or his sister, who were the only two people who would normally come calling. Even worse, he thought he _did_ know that voice.

Touma carefully stepped around Index to head towards the door. For her part, Index grabbed a frying pan and held it threateningly, which did nothing to ease Touma's nerves.

Touma bent down to stare though his keyhole.

He saw tea-coloured hair.

* * *

{Come on, Idiot.} Misaka murmured to herself, impatiently knocking again. She felt slightly foolish, standing outside a boy's dorm room knocking on the door, but the first person to poke fun at her was taking a 5,000 volt penalty for doing so.

{You know I'm just knocking to be polite, right?} She asked the door rhetorically. Sighing, she held her hand up to the lock. Sparks jumped between her fingers as she used magnetism to slide the lock into the 'open' position.

Opening the door and striding inside, Misaka continued to grumble to herself. {Seriously, there's no way you're not home from school yet, so why aren't you answering the…}

Misaka blinked.

Halfway out the hole in his wall, bed-sheets tied together into a makeshift rope, Touma sweated.

Misaka continued to stare, her eyelids rapidly opening and closing as though she could blink away the ridiculousness of the scene.

{Hey.} Touma said, somewhat pathetically.

{…what are you doing?}

{This Kamijou Touma doesn't feel like fighting today, so he's just going to leave now, okay?}

{Like I'd be okay with that! Get back in here!}

His cunning plan of escape foiled, Touma began to climb back into the room.

{Touma, do you know this person?} A third voice drifted in from behind and below Touma.

Touma twisted around so that his head was looking down his makeshift rope. {It's okay, Index, it's just the bug-zapper girl.}

{Even when introducing me, you still won't use my name?! And who's this Index person?!}

After a few more rounds of shouting, Touma and Index were back inside the apartment.

Now present in the same room, Index and Misaka stared at each other. Index, who couldn't remember anything from the time she was 'talking in her sleep', only recognised her as the girl who had chased after Touma flinging lightning bolts at him. Misaka, on the other hand, remembered that incident just fine, and she stared down sharply at the girl who had outright _ignored_ all her attacks. She'd been hampered by the Nightmare Forces, but still!

Both girls raised a hand to point at each other. {What is _she_ doing here?!}

{Eh heh…} Touma moved his hands in a calming gesture. {Bug-zapper, this is Index. She needs a place to stay for a while. Index, this is bug-zapper. She… actually, I'm not sure why she's here.}

{My name is Misaka Mikoto! Mi-sa-ka, Mi-ko-to! It's not a hard name to remember! …and I'm here to deliver a party invitation.}

Touma blinked, totally stupefied. {Come again?}

{Remember the American girls from last night? They're apparently organising some sort of victory feast.}

Touma normally remembered incidents like that one through a new collection of injuries, so the notion of celebrating together with friends afterwards was new to him. A curious warm feeling spread though him, but his natural pessimism warred against it.

{Wait, why are you the one delivering the invitation?}

{I was the only one who knew where you live.}

{Why, exactly, do you know where I live?}

{That's, um, not important right now.}

{I disagree!}

{Look, are you coming or not?}

{Well, um, I'm not sure that Index wants to –}

He turned around at this point to face Index, and discovered that she had started drooling.

{A feast?} She said, sparkles in her eyes.

Touma turned back around. {I think that means we're coming.}

* * *

With six out of eight targets acquired (nobody seemed to know where the smoking boy and the sword girl were), Pinkie was ready to return home.

There was just one last hurdle.

{That's… um…} Uiharu fretted, trying to think of how to say this politely. She was already confused, having been dragged from her apartment straight here with only the short explanation of 'a party'.

Kuroko didn't bother being polite. {That's a hole in the ground.} She said bluntly. She was already in a foul mood, having arrived to find that others would be joining her and Misaka in this outing.

{Upside down and peanut purple.}

{What? No, look, don't bother.} Kuroko switched languages. "I speak English just fine, so –"

{Peanut purple!} Pinkie insisted.

{It's not a hole in the ground.} Index said, as she, Touma and Misaka walked onto the scene. {It's a magical portal to another realm of existence.}

Kuroko turned around, her face dripping with exasperation. Whatever she would have said, however, died on her lips as she properly noticed Index. {Shouldn't you be in custody?} She asked, honest confusion overriding her manners.

{They'd have to catch me first.} Index said with a completely straight face.

Touma swiftly clamped his hand over Index's mouth. {Ha ha!} He let out a laugh that didn't fool anyone. {Er – what she means by that is that is that Anti-Skill already interviewed her and let her go.}

{Did they now?} Kuroko said, completely unconvinced.

{Don't worry, Kuroko.} Misaka waved away Kuroko's concerns. {If she ends up being a problem, I'll handle it.}

Kuroko eyed her roommate suspiciously. {Are you sure you don't just want a rematch with her?}

{…no.}

{That pause was really, really suspicious!}

As an argument started to break out, Saten gave Uiharu an awkward smile. {How about we just go on first?}

{Um, is this really safe?} Uiharu carefully leaned over the edge. The sun hadn't been directly verhead for hours now, but Uiharu was sure that even with the lighting she had that she should have been able to see the bottom.

She couldn't.

{Don't worry, it's fine.} Saten reassured her. {I've been down this myself.}

{When?}

{Oh, just before the whole thing with the nightmare lady.}

Uiharu had many, _many_ questions, but for now she'd settle for: {What's down there at the bottom?} She couldn't see any way to climb down this thing – what had Saten done, just slid down the sides?

{Oh, it doesn't have a bottom, it just goes all the way through the Earth and comes out somewhere in America.}

Uiharu turned her head weakly. {…come again?}

{Here, I'll show you!}

{What? No, wait, Saten –}

Too late – Saten wrapped an arm around Uiharu and, shrieking with delight, jumped down the hole, pulling her friend with her. Uiharu started shrieking as well, though for entirely different reasons.

At the sound of the dual shrieks, Kuroko and Pinkie's heads both swivelled around in surprise.

{Sky, sprinkles!} Pinkie said, in a tone that made everyone sure that she meant to say 'Well, finally!'. With a hop, skip and a jump, the pink-haired girl was falling down the hole as well.

Kuroko made a noise of pure panic and dived after them, the only thought going through her head was that she was the only one here well suited to aerial rescue.

Touma wasn't far behind, though he skidded to a stop in front of the hole. {Um, how safe is this thing?} He called back to Index. He wasn't quite sold on this 'magic' business, but she seemed to know what was going on – more than he did, at any rate.

Index considered the question. {Well, theoretically this leads into the Fey realms, so there's about a 50/50 chance that they'll be eaten upon arrival.}

{And if I negate it?}

{Then they'll be trapped on the other side, never able to escape.}

Touma's face grew pained at that. If negating things wasn't an option, he was no more help than any other high-school student.

He sighed. {Well, I guess we better go after them, then.}

{Well, of course. The food is over there.}

{Saying that after mentioning that people are on the menu has bad connotations, just so you know. Are you coming, Bug Zapper?}

Misaka did not respond.

Touma looked up. There was a distinct lack of tea-coloured hair in the park. {Bug Zapper?}

* * *

Misaka 9748 tilted her head to the side as the other Misaka strode towards her.

 _|Misaka thought that she was the only Misaka deployed on this mission, Misaka comments idly.|_

The other Misaka flinched, but kept on striding forward until she stood directly in front of 9748. Then, she bodily shoved 9748 into the alleyway she had been standing in the mouth of, out of sight of the street.

9748 righted herself. _|You are displaying abnormal behaviour, Misaka notes with alarm. When was the last time you had maintenance performed?|_

 _|9748, there are no other Sister units in your vicinity, Misaka notes having counted them all up.|_

{Quit that!}The other Misaka hissed out loud.

9748 blinked. {Quit what, Misaka asks out loud, copying the communication method of the other Misaka?}

{O-other Misaka?} For some reason, this seemed to upset the malfunctioning unit. {T-then, you really are…}

Two and two are… {Oh, Misaka exclaims out loud, having made a deduction. I am sorry big sister, I did not realise it was you.}

{Big s-sister?} The Original's eyes grew wide, and her voice shook. Her behaviour was consistent with the data 9748 had of the condition called 'shock'.

{You are the one that the gene stock for the Sisters project was taken from, correct? Then that makes you our big sister, Misaka explains.}

{Gene stock… you're a clone? I – I'd heard rumours that there was a project to make military-spec clones of me, but I though that was made-up…}

9748 frowned. The Original did not know of the project? But wasn't she the one who had donated her DNA for it in the first place?

 _|The Original's DNA was obtained under false pretences, Misaka reminds Misaka while figuratively waving a finger. It isn't a surprise that she has no idea what use it was actually put to.|_

The Original flinched again. {What's with that static? It feels like my own power coming at me from outside… wait, is there more than one of you?}

{Yes, Misaka replies nonchalantly.}

{(What's up with that way of talking?) Okay then, what are you doing?!}

The Original's breathing was starting to steady. Given that she had started to focus on the details of the situation, then by 9748's understanding she was past the worst of her shock. Still, protocol was protocol.

{C768464A24E84FBFA7… Misaka requests a confirmation code.}

{Huh?}

{Without a confirmation code, Misaka cannot reveal any information about her current activities, even to big sister.}

{Seriously? My clones are password-protected?}

 _|Your mission is still time-critical, Misaka reminds Misaka.|_

The Original did not flinch this time, but instead turned around to face the direction of 9874's broadcast. {There's another one of you over there, is there? …if I keep following them, then one of them will have to lead me to your base!}

So saying, the Original stepped back from 9748 and into the main street, before running in the general direction of 9874.

9748 considered this for a moment. 9874 was not, in fact, anywhere near the current production facility – she was supplying one of the equipment drop-points for a later experiment.

Still, she had her orders. Going from what she had glimpsed earlier, several members of the city had already entered the anomaly. The natives from inside it would be fully alert for more visitors, so her mission to observe unobtrusively was already doomed. She had no choice.

Whatever it was that was occurring inside the anomaly, she would have to join in.


	3. Mistakes were made

Shortly within the borders of the Everfree forest, just off the path, a deep hole was present in the forest floor. It didn't look like something an animal would dig – it was far too circular, and the walls far too smooth. It's abrupt appearance just screamed 'magic', even before one noticed that its edges were glowing. The wooden sign 'Danger, probably magic' prominently nailed to the nearest tree seemed almost superfluous.

When taken in as a whole, the scene looked less like a real place and more like a postcard of the Everfree that somepony had taken a hole punch to.

The strange, alien impression the hole gave off was, however, dispelled somewhat by the sound of a mare's scream approaching.

* * *

Saten was a carefree young girl. She was a level 0 esper, attending Sakugawa Middle School. She was friends with Uiharu Kazari, Shirai Kuroko, and Misaka Mikoto.

Uiharu was another Sakugawa student. She was friends with her schoolmate Saten, had a more mischievous relationship with her Judgement partner Kuroko, and a more distant one with the friend of her friend, Misaka.

_ was a carefree young _. She was a _. She was friends with _ _, _ _, and _ _.

_ was another _ student. She was friends with her schoolmate _, had a more mischievous relationship with her _ _ _, and a more distant one with the friend of her friend, _.

Satin was a carefree young mare. She was an earth pony with a Cutie Mark of a magnifying glass. She was friends with Gatekeeper, Stage Hand, and Railgun.

Gatekeeper was another Academy student. She was friends with her schoolmate Satin, had a more mischievous relationship with her other friend Stagehand, and a more distant one with the friend of her friend, Railgun.

* * *

Faster than the eye could track, two shapes shot out of the glowing hole in the ground, slowed to a stop in the air, then came crashing back down to the ground next to the hole. This flight path meant that they went over the top of the completely out-of-place picket fence that tightly followed the edges of the hole. The moment the shapes hit the ground, the screaming stopped, the air squashed out of their lungs.

For a moment, the forest was quiet again, before one of the shapes groaned and stood to its hooves, revealing itself as an earth pony mare with dark-coloured fur and the Cutie Mark of a magnifying glass. {Okay, that tingled more than I remember.}

{We're alive?} The other mare wearily raised her head, looking quite shaken. She had light blue fur, and her Cutie Mark was obscured by the flowers weaved into her mane.

-Click-

"4:46 PM. Two mares ejected from hole, pictures attached. First subject appears identical to Academy resident 'Satin', second mare unknown."

The two mares' heads turned at the unexpected voice.

A third mare sat on the other side of the path from the hole, a seemingly-random assortment of equipment surrounding her. Her horn glowed purple, as did the camera that had just taken their picture. A small dragon stood by her side, looking rather bored as he jotted down notes with a clipboard and pencil.

* * *

Now, the context from which the two 'mares' had come from and the context in which they now resided had different ideas on what a name should be like. This meant that, when moved from one context to the other, their names changed to match.

However, not all transitions were as simple as Saten to Satin. Some of the new names, like Gatekeeper, might be strange and unfamiliar. However, their names had not really changed, even if they were treated differently 'somewhere else'.

Thus, to ease any confusion, all characters will be referred to by their 'real' names in narration from now on.

* * *

Saten cast her mind back to the introductions of the previous night. {...Twilight?} She said, half-guessing.

Twilight peered intently back at Saten. "4:46 PM. Subject 0000 is able to identify me by name."

{Twilight, what are you doing?}

"Subject appears to be attempting to communicate in unknown language."

{I don't think she speaks Neighponese, Satin.} Uiharu reminded, getting to her hooves.

"Weeeeeeeeeee – oof!"

Another mare flew out of the hole, crashing right on top of Uiharu with a loud -donk-!

-Click-

"4:47 PM. Single mare ejected from hole, identical in appearance to Ponyville resident Pinkie Pie."

The pink mare in question lifted her head off the ground to look at Twilight in confusion. "I _am_ Pinkie Pie."

"Okay, prove it." Twilight glared the glare of someone who was working long after they should have gone to sleep. "Tell me something only Pinkie Pie would know."

"Your favourite snack is tea cake with vanilla frosting." Pinkie replied immediately.

"I never told Pinkie Pie that." Twilight shot back.

Pinkie paused, then drooped her head. "Oh, right."

Twilight suddenly blinked. "Wait. How _did_ you know what my favourite –"

* * *

Kuroko was a young teleport-type esper who let herself get obsessed far too easily. She attended Tokiwadai Middle School along with the centre of her universe, Misaka. She generally got along with her Judgement partner Uiharu, though she frequently lost her temper at her. She barely knew Uiharu's schoolmate, Saten.

_ was a young _ who let herself get obsessed far too easily. She attended _ along with the centre of her universe, _. She generally got along with her _ _, though she frequently lost her temper at her. She barely knew _'s _, _.

Stagehand was a young unicorn with a talent for teleportation who let herself get obsessed far too easily. She attended the Academy along with the centre of her universe, Railgun. She generally got along with her schoolmate Gatekeeper, though she frequently lost her temper at her. She barely knew Gatekeeper's other friend, Satin.

* * *

"Ahhhhhhhh –" -Poof-!

A fourth mare flew out of the hole. Though instead of crashing into the ground like the others had, she disappeared with a flash at the apex of her flight and reappeared safely on the ground, sprawled out on all fours.

Twilight shot one last confused look at Pinkie, then turned to the new arrival and snapped another photo. "4:47 PM. Single mare ejected from hole, identical in appearance to Academy resident 'Stagehand'."

"I'll never be single as long as I have Sissy!" One forehoof suddenly shot into the sky as the mare shouted, her twin pigtails lifted skyward with the sudden motion.

There was a slightly awkward pause as Twilight, Spike and Pinkie took in this declaration, while Saten and Uiharu just shared a look.

As suddenly as it had risen, Kuroko's hoof shot slammed down to face Saten. {You!}

{Ep!}

Kuroko disappeared in a bright flash of magic, reappearing on her hooves in front of Saten, nearly nose-to-nose with the other mare. {You should know better than to jump down an obviously magical portal without any safety gear!}

{I – wait, what kind of safety gear do you use for a magical portal?}

{I'd say a hard hat at least.} Uiharu wheezed from underneath Pinkie. Pinkie looked down, blinked, and then jumped off the poor mare.

{And for that matter, since when was the portal being magical 'obvious'?} Saten moved her head and neck backwards, sweating slightly from the intensity of Kuroko's glare.

{That Index filly told us that this was magic, didn't she?} Kuroko said, ignoring the fact that Index was older than her.

{Huh? But I thought that you didn't believe her?}

{Why would I do that?}

Saten opened her mouth. {Because…}

When she didn't continue, Kuroko raised an eyebrow. {Because…?}

Saten closed her mouth, her eyes widening. There _had_ been a reason – something that Kuroko knew that made her unable to believe Index's words, but for the life of her Saten _couldn't remember what it was_.

"Ahem." Twilight cleared her throat. "Please state your name for the record."

Kuroko glanced over at Twilight, glanced back at Saten to make sure she wasn't going to continue, then turned around bodily to face Twilight. "What are you doing, Sparkle?"

"I'm keeping detailed notes so I can investigate this anomaly scientifically." Twilight said.

"You mean _I'm_ keeping detailed notes." Spike interrupted grumpily, his pencil still moving back and forth across his clipboard.

Twilight looked over at her assistant. "I promised you a diamond for this, didn't I?"

Behind Kuroko, Pinkie yawned. She looked up at the (low) position of the sun in the sky, and tapped one of her hind-hooves against the ground.

Kuroko sighed. "When you say anomaly, I assume you mean the portal behind me?"

"That's right." Twilight turned back to face Kuroko again. "I've done some preliminary research on magical portals – there's one quite close to here that opens up every so often so the Breezies can collect pollen – and none of the ones studied so far display the same side-effects as this one."

"Side-effects?" Kuroko raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"Tell me your name first." Twilight said, stubbornly.

Kuroko rolled her eyes. "I told you last night, my name is Stagehand."

Twilight turned back to Spike. "4:49 PM. Subject 0003 claims her name is 'Stagehand'."

"I got it, I got it." Spike said, tongue clenched between his teeth as he continued to write furiously. "(I should have asked for a bigger gemstone…)"

Pinkie was joined in her boredom by Saten and Uiharu, neither of who spoke Equish very well and therefore couldn't understand a word that was being said.

Kuroko sighed. "And what exactly is wrong with my name, Sparkle?"

"Nothing, nothing." Twilight said, in a way that completely failed to convey any sense that there wasn't anything wrong. "Now, just for the record, what is the name of the place you just came from?"

Kuroko stared at Twilight for a few seconds, then closed her eyes and sighed. "I have just come from the Academy. I came because I was chasing Gatekeeper, Satin and Pinkie, trying to keep them from going -splat-. The time was 5:03 PM when I left, it was an overcast day, and my favourite food is cherries. Is that enough for you, Sparkle?" She opened one eye, watching Twilight's reaction.

"For now." Twilight answered, gently easing several still-developing photos out of her camera.

"Now, those side-effects?" Kuroko prompted.

"Travelling through the anomaly creates discrepancies." Twilight said. "Logical inconsistencies."

At some unsaid signal, Pinkie, Saten and Uiharu set off for Ponyville at a walk. Twilight and Kuroko were too engrossed in conversation to notice. Spike shot them a jealous look as he watched them go.

"Logical inconsistencies like…?" Kuroko prompted again.

"How many times would you say that the sun rose this morning?" Twilight asked.

Kuroko cocked her head at the odd question. "…twice." She said. "Once normally, then a second time once Nightmare Moon was subdued and Eternal Night ended."

"That's what I remember, too." Twilight said. "Unfortunately, that sequence of events is quite impossible."

"Huh?" Kuroko blinked.

"We saw the sun rise, Nightmare Moon set it, then the Princess –" Spike gently nudged Twilight, and she corrected herself mid-sentence " – Princess Celestia returned it to its rightful place. But that's _not_ what the ponies _over here_ saw. They saw Nightmare Moon arrive and leave, Princess Celestia raise the sun, and it stay raised." She glanced at the sky, where the sun was getting reasonably close to the horizon.

"It _was_ early in the morning." Kuroko offered. "Maybe everypony just missed the 'false dawn'?"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "On the morning of the Summer Sun Celebration? The one day a year when everypony watches the raising of the sun?"

"Alright, fine." Kuroko said, slightly testily. "You explain it."

"I _can't_." Twilight responded, just as testy. "That's the problem. It's easier to cause a sunrise then it is to fake one, and the ponies here would have seen that as well. We _can't_ have seen a sunrise – so how come we _did?_ "

"So, what, you think this portal messes with the ponies that go through it?" Kuroko said, her expression and voice suddenly completely flat. "Please excuse me while I go fetch my tinfoil hat."

Twilight stamped a hoof on the ground. "This is serious! Sure, the side effects thus far have been small and easily dismissed, but what if something _big_ were to happen to somepony who moved through?!"

"Excuse me, Railgun politely interrupts. Could you please direct me to the nearest area of civilisation, Railgun asks, assuming and presuming that such a place exists."

Twilight had been looking at Kuroko at the time, and so saw quite clearly as all the colour drained out of her fur. Moving in short, sudden jerks, Kuroko's head turned to face the voice that had just spoken.

She matched exactly what Twilight remembered of Misaka from last night – the same tea-coloured mane, the same chestnut eyes, the same light brown wings. Her mane made snapping and crackling noises, which wasn't at all surprising considering that she had taken the extraordinary step of weaving lightning bolts into her fur.

The newcomer looked at the two shocked faces aimed at her. "Did Railgun say something odd, Railgun asks?"

A high-pitched whistling noise came from somewhere near the back of Kuroko's throat.

Twilight blinked, a little taken aback herself. "For example…"

"S-S-S-S-Sis-Sis-Sissy!" Kuroko screeched. "Wha – what has happened to you?!"

"Railgun does not know what you mean, Railgun says as she tilts her head to the side in confusion. Railgun has never met you before, so she does not know to what baseline you would be comparing her to."

"Sparkle!" Kuroko's gaze snapped around to focus on Twilight with panic in her eyes. "What do we do to fix her? TELL ME WE CAN FIX HER!"

"I – well – I'd need more data to work with – there's a lab under the Ponyville library, but –"

"Then lets go!" Kuroko's horn suddenly stared glowing.

"No wait –!"

Twilight's objections were ignored as three ponies and a dragon were enveloped in a bright flash of magic, and vanished without a trace.

* * *

Index was an extraordinary young girl who could be said to contain the combined magical knowledge of every civilisation of the human race. She had just begun to make friends with the Academy City resident Touma Kamijou.

Touma was stubborn, unlucky and held some very strong opinions on the subjects of right and wrong. He was listed in Academy City as a Level 0 esper, but his right hand contained the mysterious existence known as Imagine Breaker. He had managed to attract an unrequited rivalry from Misaka Mikoto, and was host of the otherwise homeless Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

_ was an extraordinary young _ who could be said to contain the combined magical knowledge of every _ _ _. She had just begun to make friends with the _ _ _.

_ was stubborn, unlucky and held some very strong opinions on the subjects of right and wrong. He was listed in _as a _ _ _, but his right _ contained the mysterious existence known as Imagine Breaker. He had managed to attract an unrequited rivalry from _, and was host of the otherwise homeless _.

 _The sound of breaking glass rang out._

Index was an extraordinary young mare who could be said to contain the combined magical knowledge of every race in Equestria. She had just begun to make friends with the Academy student _ _.

Touma was _, _ and held some very strong _ on the subjects of right and wrong. He was _ in Academy City as a Level 0 esper, but his _ hand contained the mysterious _ known as Imagine Breaker. He had managed to attract an _ rivalry from Misaka Mikoto, and was _ of the otherwise _ Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

 _The _ of breaking glass _ out._

Index was an extraordinary young mare who could be said to contain the combined magical knowledge of every race in Equestria. She had just begun to make friends with the _ _ _ _.

Touma _ boneheaded, unlucky _ _ _ _ _ opinions _ _ _ _ _ _ _. _ _ listed _ University City _ _ Level 0 psychic, _ _ right hand _ _ _ power _ _ Imagine Breaker. _ _ _ _ _ _ unwanted rivalry _ Misaka Mikoto, _ _ host _ _ _ homeless Index of Prohibited Books.

 _The _ of _ _ _ out._

Index was an extraordinary young mare who could be said to contain the combined magical knowledge of every race in Equestria. She had just begun to make _ with _ _ _ _ _.

_ _ _, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Imagine Breaker. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.

* * *

Unlike any of the other mares who had made the trip through the hole in the Everfree forest, Index's flight was neither uncontrolled nor were her movements panicked. The apex of her flight coincided with ground level almost perfectly, and she stepped onto the small ledge next to the fence like she was walking off a boat.

Grabbing hold of the fence like a railing, Index checked herself over for anything missing – or more worryingly, anything extra.

One, two, three… all four hooves were in place, her fur its usual light blue. She was still clothed in her white-and-gold robes. No wings, and – she touched her forehead with a forehoof – no horn. So far so good.

She looked around. On this side, the portal was surrounded by the thick trunks of forest trees. Apart from the fence and a sign nailed to the nearest tree, nothing artificial could be seen. Index's eyebrows drew together. Everything around her seemed perfectly natural, and for a portal like that she should be seeing _something_ –

The fur on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end.

Slowly and carefully, Index turned her head to look.

_ _ was splayed out on the ground opposite her.

…

…

She shook her head to clear it, and looked again.

No good. The _ was still _ _.

Index's eyes was seeing _, but her brain was refusing to attach any meaning to that _. It wasn't that there _wasn't_ anything there, or that it was a eldritch abomination that could not be understood. Instead, it seemed to not fit into any category that existed in this world, even the category of nothings.

_ started to _ _ to where she was, _ _ _ as _ did so.

As a knee-jerk reaction, Index pressed herself into the fence behind her. There was nothing in her 103,000 grimoires that could produce an effect like _this_.

All of a sudden, she realised she was afraid. _ was still _ towards her.

"Wha-what is this?" The words tumbled from her lips. "What kind of spell could have produced something like this?! _That power of yours_ should have protected you from –!"

Index's panicked thoughts came to a screeching halt.

' _That power_ '?

Yes, that was right.

_ held a special power that rendered attempts to affect _ with magic useless. That meant it was a _something_.

The mind that had been designed to analyse and counter any magical effect kicked into high gear. What else could she infer?

_ was not there was she had come through the portal – it had appeared shortly after she had arrived. It was almost a certainty that it had also come from the portal. But it hadn't continued skyward like a ray would – it had changed direction. It had the property of 'velocity'. It was an _object_.

Before her eyes, some of the mysteries of _ started to be filled in. Now that she had forcibly placed it in the category of 'object' it gained presence and solidity. She could now see that _ was _moving_ towards her.

It wasn't moving downhill – it was moving under its own power. Magic could not be its animating force – not with the power it held. Therefore, _ was a _creature_. With _that_ worked out, some of the gaps in her memory that Index hadn't even realised were there started to become filled in. Yes, that was right – she and _ had both wanted to come through the portal together, but _ had been worried that _their special power_ would destroy the portal while they were travelling through it. They had wanted to quickly return home to grab a _ to cover their _ with.

_ finally reached her, and touched _ _ to her shoulder, _. Index flinched at the sensation, which felt distinctly like _.

The deductions were coming thick and fast now. _ had a home with possessions. That home was within easy travel distance – _ lived in the Academy. These facts together mean that _ wasn't an animal – it was one of the talking races.

If _ was one of the talking races, and she had been willing to wait for _ to return before proceeding, then that could only mean that she _knew_ _.

Some other part of _'s existence clicked into place, and Index could suddenly comprehend a loud screeching noise, sounding like nails being scraped down a chalkboard. Index flinched at the loud and distressing sound.

"Cut that out, _Imagine Breaker!_ "

-click-

That seemed to have been the final hurdle. There was a crunching sound that inexplicably put the image of two gears crushing an obstruction between them to mind, and Touma snapped back into understanding. All of a sudden, Index realised that it was _his_ forehoof shaking her roughly, and his voice that was shouting in her face.

{Index! Index!} He cried. {Can you see me? Tell me you can see me!}

{I can see you just fine!} She snapped, swatting away his boot-covered forehoof with one of her own. At once, the awful screeching sound stopped, ending on a peal that almost sounded confused.

All four of Touma's knees folded under him, and he collapsed to the ground, panting.

The loud sounds that had been filling the air were now gone. Now that a creature from beyond understanding was no longer bearing down on her, Index could feel her racing heart begin to slow. She took the chance to look him over more thoroughly.

His fur was a dirty white. His mane was black, and stuck up around his head like the spikes of a hedgehog. He had no wings or horn, which wasn't surprising given that his features had the gangly cast that marked him as a mule, a half-donkey, rather than a pure-bred pony. Curiously, there was a faint mark on his flanks that resembled a Cutie Mark – when Index squinted, she thought she could see the outline of a zero symbol.

All of this matched up with how Index remembered him.

The only trouble was, was that the way she had remembered him _before_ coming through the portal?

{What…}

Touma's shaken voice interrupted Index's introspection. She looked down into his eyes.

{What just happened?}

Index considered the question. How best to explain this?

Then she shrugged. {The world didn't know what you were.}

Touma's eyes slowly lifted off the ground.

…

{Huh?} He managed.

Index climbed over the fence around the portal, and Touma moved to follow her out of sheer reflex.

{The world didn't know what you were.} Index repeated. {It didn't know how much you weighed, what kind of sounds you made, whether you could think for yourself or not, nothing. It couldn't understand your existence. I had to explain to it who and what you were.}

Touma stared at her, blank incomprehension in his eyes.

{Now come on.} Index chastised him, setting off down the path at a trot. {If we take much longer, there won't be any food left for me!}

{W-wait!} Touma scrambled to follow her. {What do you mean, the world didn't know what I was? How could a world fail to know anything?!}

{I don't know.} Index freely admitted. {Nothing in my 103,000 grimoires contain anything like what just happened to you. But if I had to guess, I'd say that it has to do with how that power of yours interacts with the portal we just went through.}

{Well if that's the case then I'm never going through it again.}

{You have to in order to go home, remember?}

Touma froze in mid-step. Index glanced back at him. His head was drooping down to the ground, and an aura of doom and gloom had settled around his shoulders like a cloak.

A twinge of sympathy flashed across the mind that was otherwise concerned with the food awaiting her in town. {B-but I'm sure nothing bad will happen next time!} She reassured him. {After all, the world knows who you are now!}

{You don't know how bad my luck is.} Touma moped. {You know the old saying from the Celestial Empire, 'May you live in interesting times?'}

{The phrase often said to be a Celestial curse without any evidence and despite the fact that the phrase has no Celestial equivalent?} Index rattled off automatically, turning around fully.

{…yeah, that one.} Touma said, having momentarily forgotten that Index was a walking encyclopaedia of everything magical. {It basically describes my life. I can't even go a week without an 'adventure' happening to me.}

{Oh, come on. I'm sure it isn't that bad.}

As soon as Index spoke those words, a rift opened in spacetime.

"There you are!" Cried a brown earth pony with a hourglass as a Cutie Mark as he leaned out of the rift. "Where have you – oh nevermind now, the time beavers are coming!"

So saying, the strange pony wrapped both forehooves around Touma's middle and pulled him through the rift, which sealed behind him.

…

…

Index opened her mouth, and closed it again.

* * *

"Well howdy there sugercube!" Applejack greeted Index as she walked somewhat stiffly into Ponyville Square. "We was worried ya'd gotten stuck halfway down that hole or somethin'. Er – ya don't happen to know where th' others are, do ya?"

Index's rump hit the ground with a firm -thud- as her eyes stared off into the distance.

Applejack blinked, and leaned closer. "Somethin' the matter?"

"Something just happened that makes absolutely no sense." Index said, faintly. "I need to sit down for a while."

Applejack took in Index's unfocused eyes and slightly slurred speech and jumped to the completely wrong conclusion. "Don't worry about it, sugercube." She said. "Lots of ponies have that reaction to Pinkie Pie. The headaches dull over time." She offered a small confectionery on the end of a hoof. "Cupcake?"


	4. Reflected echo

"Railgun does not fully understand your intentions, Railgun says, however if you intend to hold me captive it will be met by heavy retaliation from my people."

"Oh, Sissy!" Kuroko moaned. "Can you really not remember anything of our deep, everlasting love for each other?!"

She reached forward to wrap both forelegs around Misaka 9748, which proved to be a mistake as one of the lightning bolts in 9748's fur was jiggled loose.

-ZAP-!

"Don't touch me." 9748 said in a complete monotone that somehow still managed to sound contemptuous, looking down at Kuroko's smoking body.

Twilight, who was rummaging through cupboards and bookshelves on the other side of the Golden Oak's library's basement, looked up and over at the two of them. "4:55 PM. Subject 0004 displays intense hostility to 0003, supposedly her friend."

Kuroko moaned "Actually, this is normal…" at the same time as Spike yelped "Wait, I'm still taking notes?". Ignoring both of them, Twilight went back to rummaging in cupboards.

9748 looked around at the underground room. Whoever designed it had apparently been on a B-grade sci-fi kick when they had – there were large scientific instruments taking up much of the floorspace that 9748 was reasonably sure were decorative. The roots of a large tree dangled down from above and wrapped around some of the equipment, giving the room an air of abandonment despite the fact that it was clean and well-maintained.

"Ah-ha!" Twilight crowed. "I was hoping that there would be one of these down here!"

Kuroko flopped around on the ground to face Twilight, and she, Spike, and 9748 all stared at the contraption that she had telekinetically pulled out of one of the cupboards. It resembled a wide-brim hat comprised primarily out of light-bulbs, and thus looked like an even lower-quality prop than the rest of the basement lab.

"I'll just place this on Stagehand to get a baseline reading –" Twilight said, proceeding to do so "– and then I'll record Railgun's brainwaves, and hopefully the comparison will tell us –"

-Zap!- -Bang!-

Just before the device touched 9748's fur, a bright flash and the smell of ozone suddenly filled the room as a spark jumped from her tea-coloured mane to the device, causing all of its light-bulbs to shatter explosively.

Spike yelped, and toppled backwards off of the counter-top he had been sitting on.

Kuroko looked up with wide eyes at one of her pigtails, which was swinging back and forth with the force of the glass shard that had whizzed through it.

Twilight, who had been standing at ground zero, blinked uncomprehendingly. Several red lines traced themselves across her muzzle, and the metallic smell of blood began to mix with the ozone.

For a moment, there was complete silence.

"What –" Twilight found her voice "– what was that for?!"

"You did not ask Railgun for permission to read her brainwaves, Railgun scoffs."

One of Twilight's sleep-deprived eyes began to twitch. "And because of that, you decided to blow up a valuable scientific instrument in my face?!"

"Yes, Railgun says, glad that the rude pony has understood her point."

"You – agh!" Twilight let out a noise of pure frustration. She turned away in a huff, using her magic to pull a first-aid kit out of another cupboard. She walked into the nearby bathroom, set herself up in front of the mirror, and slammed the door shut with a purple aura.

The moment the door closed, 9748 immediately turned around and began to walk back up the stairs.

"W-wait! Sissy, where are you going?!" Kuroko vanished with a flash and reappeared in 9748's path.

"Railgun is leaving, Railgun states the obvious." The Sister said, shoving Kuroko out of the way. "Railgun has much better things to do than to entertain the fantasies of ponies she doesn't know, Railgun adds with a note of scorn in her voice."

In a way, the monotone voice and emotionless eyes made it worse. Kuroko stared wordlessly as the object of her affections walked out, the dismissal obvious in the way she didn't look back.

* * *

"W-wow, she's really eating all of it!"

"Applejack, fetch more of them fruit!"

"Yes granny!"

"The Apple family ain't gonna loose in a battle of food!"

Saten and Uiharu were both sitting on their haunches, watching dumbly. Though neither of them had reacted much at the time, the both of them had been just as surprised as Kuroko when the white-and-gold Index had shown up at the Academy side of the portal unexpectedly. Any worries they might have had had about her intentions, however, had been completely forgotten in the face of the desperate struggle in front of them.

Uiharu in particular seemed completely flummoxed after watching Index devour the leftovers of a banquet that had been set up to feed an entire town. {B-but… if I add up the volume of the food, it comes out to greater than her body mass? Is she descended from a pink fluff-ball whose stomach leads to another dimension?}

Mystery-hunter Saten, on the other hand, had sparkles in her eyes. {I really get the feeling here that I'm watching a legend in the making!}

"U-um…"

Saten and Uiharu turned to face a new pony – one who had dark pink fur, and a Cutie Mark of three flowers. "Well, it's just that I don't think I've seen you around Ponyville before, and I just wanted to say welcome!"

There was a short pause.

{U-um, Uiharu, I get the feeling she just said something really nice to us, b-but…}

{M-my Equish isn't much better, Saten. Ah! I know! We can communicate through our shared theme of flowers!}

Index finished draining the punch bowl before turning to face the two of them. {She said welcome to Ponyville.}

{O-oh, right…} Uiharu deflated. {Um, could you tell her thanks from us?}

Index repeated the message. The other pony, feeling that continuing through an interpreter would be too awkward, smiled nervously and walked off.

Surrounded by the oppressive power of the language barrier, Saten and Uiharu only had only one pony they could really talk to.

{Um… I don't think we were ever introduced.} Uiharu started, inwardly cringing. Of course they were never introduced – she'd never met the robe-wearing pony in person until just before they all jumped down the portal. {I'm Gatekeeper, and this is Satin.}

Index swallowed a big mouthful of apples and nodded. {Nice to meet you. My name is Index.}

She said this in an entirely pleasant way, a friendly smile prominent on her features. It was a stark contrast, Uiharu couldn't help but think, from the soulless expression she'd been wearing back when she'd faced down Nightmare Moon by herself, holding Misaka off with one metaphorical hoof.

But where Uiharu was nervous, Saten was excited. {So where'd you learn to speak Equish?}

{A better question might be where I learned to speak Neighponese.} Index observed, her ravenous eating put on pause for now as she fully committed to the conversation. {Seeing as how I'm from Canterlot originally.}

The old earth pony who'd sent Applejack off for more food blinked and leant in to examine the apple pie Index had been about to eat, unsure if she should count this as her victory.

Uiharu, who was just as much of a fangirl about the aristocracy as Rarity was, suddenly had the nervousness in her eyes replaced by stars. {Ah, really?! Oh that's so exciting! Canterlot is so romantic – all the dukes and princesses and fancy cocktail parties…}

She got a far-away look in her eye, probably remembering something she read in a _Shōjo_ manga.

Index sweat-dropped. {Well, yes, I've heard it's like that.}

Saten's amateur detective instincts flared up. {Huh? You've 'heard' it's like that? But didn't you just say you were from there?}

{Oh, well…} Index hadn't planed to get this personal with a ponies she'd just met, but… {It's just, I don't have any memories from before a year ago. My life before then is one giant question mark to me.}

{What?!} Saten and Uiharu shouted in surprised stereo, startling the few ponies still hanging around Pinkie's party.

{T-that's terrible!}

{Wait, if you can't ever remember being in your hometown, do you even know who your parents are?}

{I-it shouldn't be too hard to find them! After all, there can't be very many earth ponies living in Canterlot!}

{Huh?} Index tilted her head to the side, and in a slightly confused tone of voice said {What makes you think I'm an earth pony?}

Saten opened her mouth, couldn't find any words, and closed it again. Next to her, Uiharu sat in a similar state of confusion. But…

{Railgun would say that it is the lack of wings and a horn, Railgun deadpans.}

Saten and Uiharu both jumped. 'Misaka' seemed to have arrived on scene while they were distracted with Index.

{Ha ha, very funny short hair.} Index greeted 9748 with an annoyed scowl. She gulped down the pie in front of her, re-lighting the fire in the eyes of the elderly earth pony watching.

{Railgun?} Saten asked timidly. Confusing things seemed to be raining from the sky at this point. {Are you okay? You're talking about yourself in the third person.}

{Why is everypony thinking that Railgun is somehow injured, Railgun asks in exasperation? Railgun had a full diagnostic immediately before departing, so Railgun is fine, Railgun states furiously, hoping it will end the discussion.}

Saten and Uiharu stared at 9748, taken aback at her monotone vitriol. Even Index found the time to raise an eyebrow in-between gulping down the last of the party food.

{A-anyway!} Uiharu interrupted, hoping to steer the conversation back to friendlier waters. {T-the Equestrian girls' town is certainly nice!}

{Y-yeah!} Saten joined in, catching on. {Their weather team are really on the ball – not a cloud in the sky!}

{Oh, yes-yes. Grandmother is always saying that Dash Rainbow is greatest weather pony she is ever seeing in over 50 year!}

The terrible Neighponese heralded the return of Applejack, hitched up to a cart of apple-based foodstuffs. Index's eyes lit up and she zipped over to the cart, her eyes devouring the food before her hooves had even touched it.

{You can speak Neighponese? Railgun says, surprised that one of the locals speaks a civilised tongue.}

Applejack raised an eyebrow at the rude narration. {Why is so surprising that Applejack has hidden deepness? Also, since when is Railgun providing own narration? That is being more Pie Pinkie thing.}

{Apricot straddle?} A third pony randomly joined the conversation, her head bursting unexpectedly out of the new punch bowl Applejack had brought on her cart.

All others in attendance paused to stare.

Slowly, Saten raised the tablecloth to find the rest of Pinkie's body standing under the table, her neck rising up into the part of the table where the punch bowl was. Applejack, with a confused look on her muzzle, gently pushed Pinkie's head back down into the punch. There was a gurgling sound, and the punch drained out the hole Pinkie had been plugging with her neck.

{When did - } 9748 began, only for Applejack to shush her. {It is better that we are not knowing.}

{Maps free!} Pinkie cried, springing out from under the table. Her mane was wet and smelled of fruit juice.

Applejack sighed. "Pinkie, ya know nopony can understand ya when ya go on like that, right?"

"Wait, really?" Pinkie blinked, confused. "What, is my accent that bad?"

"…sure. Let's go with that."

"Fiddlesticks." Pinkie pouted. "How ever am I going to get them to join in my funerrific party games if I can't sing them the rules?"

"Pinkie, ah'm pretty sure everypony knows how to play 'pin the tail on the pony'. Ya don't need to get into a fuss on account a' that one."

Pinkie inhaled in a loud exited gasp. "That's a great idea! Thanks Applejack!" She zoomed off into the distance, presumably to fetch the necessary materials.

{Are we really going to be performing reconstructive surgery as a form of entertainment, Railgun asks in sick fascination?}

That monotone question earned 9748 puzzled looks.

{N-no.} Applejack corrected, honestly confused. {'Pin tail on pony' is game, not doctor-working! Is fake tail, _picture_ of pony! Is funny when player miss and pin tail to pony foot by mistake!}

{I see, Railgun murmurs. It appears that mocking the disabled and disfigured is an acceptable form of amusement here, she notes to herself.}

{Aren't you a little old for foal's games, though?} Index asked Applejack, appraising her critically.

{Is _Applejack_ too-too old? Is Index not similar age?} Applejack responded somewhat defensively.

{I'm 14.} Index immediately replied.

{U-uiharu and I are 12!} Saten cried, not wanting to be left out.

{And Railgun is one week of age, assuming we are counting the opening of her tank as the moment of her 'birth', Railgun adds.}

Saten turned around. {Okay, seriously, is there an in-joke that I'm missing, or…?}

{N-neighpon ponies are really so young?} Applejack spluttered, having apparently missed everything after '12'. Land sakes, Apple Bloom wasn't much younger than that! The Neighpon ponies looked seriously older than they really were!

The conversation radically changed direction at that point, because Pinkie zoomed back to the party, gesturing everypony off to where she'd set everything up.

As the overexcited party planner hurried everypony along, a thought occurred to her.

"Hey, wasn't there a stallion with you guys? Where'd he go?"

* * *

"Right." The brown earth pony said, slamming a device down on the ground that appeared to be comprised primarily of stop-watches that had been duct-taped together. "The rest of the Lad Brigade is holding the beavers at bay just ahead, which means we have one shot at this. Time's already fuzzy inside this breach, and this device _should_ let us abuse that to have a single object 'touch' all times at once – in this case, your right forehoof. Any questions?"

{I have no idea what you just said.}

{Oh, right. Basically, if you stick your right forehoof in here it'll either seal this breach for good or collapse all of time and space down to a single point.}

{You're joking! Would there even be an afterlife left after something like that?!}

{Let's find out!} The earth pony said, a mad gleam in his eyes.

{Let's not!}

* * *

"I haven't a clue." Index said, completely honestly.


	5. Fuse is lit

"Hold on to the tail nice and tight;

wear this blindfold to block your sight!

Spin you round, one two three;

Pin the tail on the po-nee!"

And with that, Pinkie lifted Uiharu up onto her hind legs and spun her around three times. Uiharu landed and stumbled around dizzily, trying to regain her footing while blindfolded. Pinkie and Saten both steadied her with a gentle nudge from their heads into her middle, and pointed her in the direction of her target: a piece of stiff cardboard pinned to the wall of Pinkie's room in Sugercube Corner.

Uiharu took a couple of uncertain steps forwards until she gently bumped her head into the wall. Having reached her target, she lifted her head up and pressed the pin she was holding in her mouth into the cardboard. The cardboard tail attached to said pin slid out of her mouth as she pulled her head back. She took a step back and removed her blindfold.

"Pffff. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Uiharu's cheeks flushed with heat as Pinkie rolled around on the ground laughing. She'd managed to pin [picture] Princess Celestia's tail onto her head so that it lined up with her hair, but flowing in the opposite direction.

"Hee hee hee." Applejack remained upright, but she was also laughing. "It looks like she got her head stuck in some kinda rainbow-coloured cloud!"

Uiharu's Equish may have sucked, but it wasn't exactly hard to tell that she was being laughed at.

"Heh heh heh. Or that the artist messed up her head and tried to erase it by covering everything in hair, Railgun adds while laughing."

{I thought you were against laughing at this!}

Saten hid her own grin – Uiharu's blush, visible even though her fur, was mixing with the flowers in her mane in a way that reminded her of a radish. {Okay!} She said, drawing focus onto herself. {Your turn now, Railgun!}

{Heh, Railgun gets one final chuckle in. Railgun has used her observation period to build up a method of completing this picture with 100% chance of success, Railgun brags arrogantly.}

{If Railgun is knowing that she is being arrogant, why is she announcing it to world?} Applejack shook her head.

{Don't worry!} Saten reassured 9748. {It's basically just a game of Fukuwarai with less pieces!}

Uiharu pulled the tail out from the wall with perhaps a little more force than was strictly necessary, and handed it to 9748. Pinkie repeated her jingle from before, and she and Saten repeated what they had done to Uiharu. Unlike Uiharu, however, 9748 had wings to balance with, and so regained steady footing almost immediately.

Her fur bristled, the lightning bolts inside it twisting in place until they all formed into a series of curving lines; like the kind iron particles form when a bar magnet is held near.

9748 twisted her head back and forth, as though she was trying to discern the origin of a sound. A pair of lightning bolts sat just above her ears like some kind of bizarre hairband, and as her head pointed in the direction of the correct wall, the two bolts swivelled down to point directly at the pin holding the picture of Princess Celestia to the wall.

{Um, is that cheating?} Uiharu asked.

9748 ignored her.

Taking calm, measured steps, 9748 walked up to the wall. And then, a silly grin plastered on her blindfolded face, she pinned the tail onto the cardboard _exactly_ where it was supposed to go.

With a flourish, 9748 removed her blindfold.

-snort-

Her face coloured as the ponies behind her tried (and failed) to hold in their laughter.

She'd placed the tail in the correct place all right – but she'd been so focused on getting the pin in the right place, she'd forgotten to make sure that the tail was pointing in the correct direction. She'd pinned it so that the tail was pointing straight up.

{W-what's so surprising, your highness?} Saten joked. {With your tail straight up like that, you look like you just stepped on a sea urchin!}

9748 spun around, her cheeks still burning. {R-railgun was right, Railgun flusters. This is nothing but an insensitive exercise that derives entertainment from the indignity of others, Railgun –}

{Railgun pony is looking adorableness with cheeks puff out. Like chipmunk.}

Applejack's off-hoof comment drove 9748 past the point of coherency, and she was reduced to random spluttering.

"My turn, my turn~!" Pinkie cried, snatching the blindfold off 9748. "Hold on to the tail nice and tight –"

The other five ponies sat back and watched as Pinkie managed to pin Celestia's tail above her middle, making it look like she was wearing a rainbow-coloured inner tube.

{Don't take it too personally, Railgun.} Saten consoled 9748. {We're just teasing you.}

{Railgun is not taking it personally, Railgun protests. Railgun is merely protesting the unfair treatment of ponies not present to defend themselves, Railgun says defiantly.}

{Oh, I don't think Princess Celestia would mind.}

{You have not asked her, Railgun points out. She might find it incredibly offensive, she insists.}

{Well, I guess well just have to keep it between us friends then.}

Saten stepped forwards to take her turn with the blindfold, completely failing to notice that 9748 had gone very quiet.

* * *

Certainly, Misaka had _heard_ of the Sisters project.

That is, she had heard about it in the same way that she had heard about the group of killer high school girls who lived in the sewers, or the project to build a laptop that could simulate Academy City, right down to the people who lived there – as a rumour that she'd heard in passing, or seen posted on the same kind of conspiracy websites that Saten liked to frequent.

But she'd never paid it any mind. Academy City had always been full of crazy stories and legends like that. In a city where there really were people who could close their eyes and see a year into the future, something like palm reading seemed downright mundane. And in a city where all the researchers one day dreamed of reaching SYSTEM, an esper capable of understanding the intentions of God, something like dissecting bodies found in a UFO seemed almost pathetic.

That was why rumours like that sprang up so quickly and easily – because in a place like Academy City, there was always the niggling doubt that they might actually be _real_.

But at the same time, that was what made them so easy to dismiss. There were simply so many rumours like that that they _couldn't_ all be real. Misaka had heard of more than a hundred rumours that focused around her specifically, and she knew them all to be false.

In a way, that was almost the most shocking part of actually finding one of the mythical Sister clones – the betrayal of the stories that were _supposed_ to all stay in the harmless category of 'fake'.

The 'How' was confusing enough – Tokiwadai put great effort into making the DNA of its students hard to acquire, to the point where they even vetted which hairdressers its students went to. Obtaining a copy of Misaka's DNA in a good enough condition that it could be used as the basis of a cloning program was supposed to be impossible. But it was the 'Who' and 'Why' that were really occupying Misaka's thoughts. To find the answers to those, she would first need to find the answer to 'Where'.

Which is why she was now standing in front of a locker.

It was a simple coin-operated locker that was commonly found in train stations. As it was _in_ a train station, it and the 40 or so identical lockers around it did not stand out in the slightest. (Although, Misaka did notice that this particular locker was out of view of the various security cameras that had been haphazardly set up without any regard for thoroughness or professional pride).

There was a simple reason she was glaring at this locker – though, for clarity, perhaps it would be best to recap a little.

Triangulation, as the name implied, used the angle from two different reference points to a third point to find the position of that third point. However, Misaka didn't have two reference points – she just had herself. Normally, it would be impossible to calculate the position of the clones base just from the direction of their signal to her.

Normally.

 _Lets see – if I assume that the clone I'm tracking was moving on foot, then that limits the radius of the area they could have moved around in while I was searching for them. Catching that bus let me take a wide range of reference points in a short amount of time, and if I'm right, that means that the clone would have been inside this train station._

It should be noted that Misaka had done those calculations in her head. She hadn't even used pen and paper, let alone the computer that most people would be completely dependent on to calculate out relative positions from her bus's route, remember the angles to those positions, then solve for _x_.

However, even as she arrived at the station she knew it was too late. The transmissions she was following had stopped, and three different trains had left between then and her arrival. There was almost zero chance of the clone still being in the station.

 _Dammit. Why'd she suddenly have to stop transmitting? Is it a coincidence, or do they have some kind of operational security?_

The useless lady at the information desk hadn't remembered seeing her 'twin', so Misaka had shrugged and skipped straight ahead to illegally accessing the security camera server. The clone had arrived at the station with a large bag, entered the locker area, and then left on a train without said bag.

Misaka might have been the #3 Level 5, but she still couldn't catch up to an express train. The clone had gotten away – so she was checking the lockers to see what the clone had left behind.

As she had already said, this part of the locker area was out of sight of the cameras, but fortunately she'd been left a clue. It was extremely faint – a Level 4 Electromaster might even have missed it – but this locker's handle was ever-so-slightly magnetised. That either meant some kid had been leaving fridge magnets on it, or…

Misaka tapped the locker with the back of her index finger, sending a jolt of electricity through the electronic lock that caused it to pop open.

… _or it's been used regularly by an Electromaster._

Misaka swung open the locker door, and there she found…

{W-what…? Is that a _landmine?!_ }

She clapped her hands over her mouth immediately after that surprised shout, but she needn't have bothered. No one had hear her over the hubbub of the train station.

She looked into the locker again.

She couldn't be sure without trying to set one off, but who in their right minds would need a _fake_ landmine?

She reached out to touch it, then thought better of it.

Slowly, it occurred to her that there were other items in the locker, each in their own bags.

Taking up the majority of the space at the back of the locker was the kind of bag that someone might use to carry a violin around.

The same kind of bag, in fact, that action movie villains frequently used to carry rifles though the streets without being noticed.

Misaka swallowed, hard. What exactly was the rumour that she had heard regarding the Sisters?

Wasn't it that there was a program to produce clones of her _for military use?_

 _And hadn't she encountered one such ready-made soldier heading towards the hole that her friends were in?_

Not even bothering to close the highly dangerous locker, Misaka ran out of the train station as fast as her legs could move.

* * *

"Thanks for, uh, coming to visit me."

"Oh, that's quite all right Rainbow. It's absolutely no trouble at all – isn't that right, Fluttershy?"

"Oh, yes indeed Rarity. No trouble at all."

The rainbow-haired weather-mare was lying in bed, legs down. Considering the reason Rainbow Dash was in Ponyville General Hospital in the first place was for broken ribs, Rarity and Fluttershy had expected to see bandages wrapped around Rainbow's barrel, but the nurse on duty had informed them that that hadn't been the recommended treatment in decades.

"So, ah, what did the doctor say?" Fluttershy asked quietly (her default volume).

Rainbow adjusted her legs, trying not to look like she was fidgeting. "Oh, well, you know how it is. She just wants me to stay overnight for observation, but she's pretty sure I just need a couple weeks to heal."

"Rainbow." Rarity said flatly.

Rainbow froze in place. "Uh, yeah?"

"You're preening."

Rainbow looked down: her neck and one of her wings had curved around to meet, and she was in the middle of licking one misaligned feather back into place. "Uh, yeah?" She repeated. "I preen when I get nerv – I mean whenever I like! Whenever I like. Yeah."

"In public?" Rarity asked, slightly incredulously.

"Okay, first of all? This is a hospital room, not the town square. Second of all? Don't be a such a prude Rarity!"

"I-it _is_ a perfectly natural thing to do." Fluttershy spoke up in defence of her fellow pegasus.

"Girls, there are plenty of 'perfectly natural' things that ponies do that I would rather not witness, thank you very much."

Fluttershy could see the steam building up in Rainbow's head, so she quickly changed the topic. "S-so you should be out of hospital by tomorrow?"

"Huh?" Rainbow blinked, her train of thought broken. "Oh, uh, yeah. Though the doc wants me to stay on 'light activities' for the next couple weeks. So, pretty much none of the things I actually _like_ doing."

"E-except napping." Fluttershy pointed out.

"Okay, fine, except napping. But seriously, what am I gonna do if you guys go on another adventure without me?"

"Rainbow." Rarity sighed, rolling her eyes. "I _highly_ doubt that another 'adventure' is going to spring up the minute we finish celebrating the first one. That would just be ridiculous."

* * *

"Sparkle!" Kuroko yelped breathlessly, reappearing in a flash of magic. "She's not in the train station either!"

"Well, she hasn't returned to the forest – not unless she can move faster than teleportation." Twilight scowled. Several band-aids were placed on her face, which combined with her uncombed mane to give her a weird sort of punk look.

The other ponies who were still in the town square were mostly there to help clean up the remains of the party of the day just past, and they gave Twilight and Kuroko wide berths as they argued.

Kuroko's ears swivelled back and forth as the stress of the situation built up. "But, then where is she?" She blurted out.

"We'd know if you hadn't just let her walk out on us!"

Kuroko faltered, taken aback by the venom in Twilight's voice. "I was in shock! My fragile maiden's heart had taken a terrible blow! Surely you understand?"

"Nope."

"R-rejected…!"

Kuroko clutched at her heart dramatically, but Twilight was in no mood to mindlessly play the straight mare.

 _She was there… she was right_ there! _Living proof that my suspicions were correct, and she just walks out the minute my back's turned!_

No, Twilight was not feeling very charitable towards Kuroko… or in general right now. That portal was dangerous, didn't anypony else see that?! The longer they were in the dark about its effects, the more damage would be done.

"We have to find Railgun, now!" Twilight snapped.

"I know, I know!" Kuroko moaned. "Oh sissy, where are you?"

"Dare I ask why you're looking for me?" Misaka asked crossly, standing just off to the side the duo.

…

"S-sissy?!" "R-railgun?!" The shocked cries of Kuroko and Twilight rang out in synchronisation. The questions started almost immediately after.

"A-are you alright?"

"Where did you go?!"

"When did you stop referring to yourself in the third person?"

"Are you going to apologise for what you did to my muzzle?!"

Rather than actually answer any of those questions, Misaka just scowled. "So, she's already started attacking ponies…"

"Eh?" Kuroko blinked.

Twilight tilted her head to the side. "She?"

"My clone!" Misaka spat. "Looks exactly like me but acts nothing like me?"

Kuroko's mouth dropped open, having been shocked into silence.

Twilight blinked, the idea working its way through her head. "Your… clone? That was a clone of you?!"

"Yeah!" Misaka said in the tone of voice usually reserved for 'no duh'. "What did you think was going on when you saw 'me' acting so out-of-character?"

"A clone." The heat of anger that had been banished by Misaka's sudden arrival was coming back, twice as strong as before. "This whole time, I'd thought I'd found proof, and she turns out to be completely unrelated?!"

"Proof of what, exactly?" Misaka raised an eyebrow.

Twilight felt the last of her patience slip away from her. "Forget it." She snapped. "I'm going back to the library." So saying, she charged up her horn and vanished in the purple flash of a teleport spell.

Kuroko blinked at the empty space Twilight had left behind, then turned to face Misaka. {Um, I can explain, Sissy. See, Twilight thought that –}

{Hey, Stagehand.} Misaka interrupted, {I'm no expert on teleportation or anything, but I've seen you do it a million times. Did that teleport look normal to you?}

{Huh? W-well, no, it did look rather unfocused… she must be having trouble concentrating.}

Misaka humphed. {Well, never mind. We need to find my clone quick, before it hurts somepony else.}

* * *

"Spike!" Twilight called, reappearing with a flash in the ground floor of the Golden Oaks library. "Spike, where are you?!"

"I'm here!" The dragon in question ran up the stairs as fast as his short legs would let him. "Did you find Railgun?"

"She's a clone." Twilight told him sourly, trotting past him to the bookshelves.

Spike blinked, frozen in place for a few seconds as he tried to process this new information. "Um… what?"

"The 'Railgun' we met is a clone!" Twilight yelled, scanning the book titles. "We met the real one in the town square!"

Spike blinked again, then hurried over to Twilight's side. "Er, why exactly does Railgun have a clone?"

"Who cares!" Twilight scowled. "It doesn't matter. It means that she's useless to our research on the anomaly after all."

Spike scratched his head. "Well, what if it was that weird portal that cloned her?"

Twilight froze. Spike took the moment to look worriedly at the bags under Twilight's eyes. She'd been working hard for nearly 36 hours straight now…

"Spike, that's brilliant!" Twilight dashed over to a different bookshelf. "Quick, help me find a book about clone magic!"

This library was very sloppily organised by Twilight's standards – it was only indexed by book title – so it took the two of them several minutes to find anything helpful, and all that book did was point them to another book that the library didn't have. As she fruitlessly looked through _The Wizarding Bible_ and _Modern Magical Mysteries_ , Twilight controlled her frustration by planning out a giant book cataloguing session she was going to do as soon as she had proven her suspicions about the hole in the Everfree.

Eventually, Spike found something in _Exotic Magical Effects,_ _3_ _2_ _nd_ _Edition_. "Twilight! Have a look at this!"

Twilight dashed over to Spike, so hasty that she snatched the book up (with her magic) without giving him a chance to actually let go of it, leaving him dangling in mid-air. "'Creating a true copy of a creature (and not simply an illusion or 'time twin') is one of the few magical effects that modern spell-casting has yet to duplicate. As of the time of publication, it remains only achievable through randomised magical sources, such as the magic of a draconequus, or of the Everfree Forest. The only known dependable source of this effect is the 'Mirror Pool', found in the Everfree Forest."

Twilight dropped the book, letting both it and Spike hit the ground with a loud -thud-. "That's it! The magic of the Everfree Forest must be interfering with the anomaly!" She gasped as another possibility occurred to her. "Or maybe it's even the source of it!"

"Ow…" Spike rubbed his head where the book had fallen on it. "Okay, but how do you go about proving that?"

Twilight dashed over to the bookshelves on the other side of the library. "Mirror Pool, Mirror Pool… here!" She pulled another book of the shelves. "'Mirror Pool clones are the distorted reflections of their original selves, and frequently fail to recognise even close friends and family.' This fits perfectly with what we saw!"

"Yeah," Spike said "but that's not actually –"

"There's even a spell to deal with the clones!" Twilight closed the book with a snap.

"When you say 'deal' with them –"

"I'll be right back, Spike!"

With that, Twilight teleported out again, leaving Spike alone with a sinking feeling that this wasn't going to end well at all.


	6. Misfire

{What does the word 'friend' mean, Railgun asks?}

Uiharu, Saten and Applejack all turned to face 9748, the same dumbfounded expression on each of their faces.

After a few seconds of complete silence, Staten felt that someone should say something. {Um, what?}

{Railgun is of course familiar with the dictionary definition of the word, Railgun says in case you are thinking she is an idiot. Railgun wishes to clarify what you meant just now. What does the word mean to you, Railgun asks with intensity?}

In the background, Pinkie cheered on Index, who had managed to pin [picture] Princess Celestia's tail onto the end of her hair.

{Um. Well…} Uiharu flustered, wondering what on earth had brought this on. {It's like… um… an ally?}

{Less formal.} Saten disagreed. {It's more like… er…}

{Person who is wanting your happiness?} Applejack suggested.

{Yeah!} Saten said. {That's more like it!}

{Still not quite it, though.} Uiharu disagreed. {It's more like… um…}

…

The three lapsed into silence, unable to definitively answer the question.

{…that is sufficient, Railgun says.}

{Sufficient for what?} Index asked, as she and Pinkie walked back to the group.

{Listen, Railgun, you've been acting weird since we got here.} Saten stomped a hoof. {If something's wrong, just tell us!}

{Many things are wrong, Railgun answers. But, she continues, they are not things that can be fixed.}

Pinkie looked between the faces of all the Neighponiese speakers (everypony but her). "Um, why does everypony look so –"

The sound of hoofsteps on the stairs to Pinkie's room interrupted the pink Earth Pony.

{9748. We are being recalled, Railgun conveys the instructions.}

Everypony turned to face the new arrival with the impossibly familiar voice, and their jaws collectively hit the ground.

Another Misaka had just walked into the room. The second one was perfectly identical to the first – the same fur, the same wings, the same muzzle with the same emotionless expression on it. They even had the same Cutie Mark – a pair of parallel lightning bolts.

{I see, Railgun replies without emotion. I assume the common language subset compilation has been completed then, Railgun asks out of curiosity?} The Misaka who had been playing with the others said.

{Not to the standards set out in the mission parameters,} The newly arrived Misaka said {but the bare minimum required for bootstrapping further entries has been completed, and as such your position as Control on this side of the anomaly is no longer required.}

The heads of the other ponies in the clearing whipped back and forth between the two ponies who could be mirror images of each other, except for the fact that only one was talking at a time.

{I see. Why, then, are we being recalled, Railgun asks?}

{Network communication protocols are being rewritten in the common language subset, as planned. However, this update cannot be installed in existing Railgun units, and as such existing units such as ourselves are therefore obsolete, and are being reassigned back to our previous assignment.}

There was a pause as the two Misakas stared emotionlessly at each other for a very seconds.

{…very well, Railgun accepts.}

Without another word, the new arrival moved out of the doorway and the first Misaka walked out of the room.

{W-wait!}

The 'first' Misaka paused at the unexpected shout, but the newer arrival continued walking away unconcerned. Had she not realised that shout was directed at her as well, or had she simply not cared? Regardless, Misaka 9748 stopped walking as Saten, Uiharu, Index, Applejack and Pinkie Pie all spilled out of Sugercube Corner in a rush, surrounding her with their bodies and voices.

{W-what's going on?!}

"Why in tarnation is there suddenly two o' ya?!"

{What mission? What are you up to that you aren't telling us about?!}

"What's going on? Why's everypony so grim all of a sudden? W-weren't we just enjoying a party?"

{…Railgun?}

9748 looked around at the faces of the ponies surrounding her. {Do you all consider yourselves to be this Railgun's friends, Railgun asks?}

{Of course!} Uiharu and Saten yelled in unison.

"What kinda question is that? O' course I do!" Applejack said, muzzle twisted in indignation.

{Um…} Index said in a moment of far too brutal honesty.

Pinkie seemed to have fallen to the floor convulsing in lieu of answering.

{Then, Railgun says matter-of-factly, you will respect her wishes and not follow her further.}

So saying, 9748 turned her gaze to the cramped stairs down to the ground floor, and pushed her way through the ponies who surrounded her.

{But –}

{Get the others out of here, Stagehand!}

An unexpected voice came from an unexpected direction. A unicorn dropped from the sky onto the group of ponies behind 9748, a teleport spell already charged on her horn.

With an -Eep!- Saten ducked out of the way, recognising the unicorn as her friend only after she'd dodged out of her grasp. Kuroko tried to grab onto her, but she was too far away, and so Saten was left behind as the rest of the group vanished in another teleport.

{Get away from my friend, clone!}

A third Misaka had appeared before Saten. Or was this the first one? She was actually acting like the Misaka Saten knew from before today, unlike the monotone Misakas. In addition, she had arrived with Kuroko, so she was probably the 'original' Misaka.

{Original.} The Misaka Saten had been with until just now said, confirming her suspicions. {Is something wrong?}

{'Is something wrong', she says. Oh, how about 'everything'?!}

One of Misaka's wings flew open, a bolt of lightning wrapped around every feather. A pair of bolts shot forth from that organic silo, hitting the ground before and to the side of where 9748 had been a moment before – the mare having jumped back, her own wings open not to return fire but to hold altitude.

{No Experiment is registered for this side of the Anomaly, Railgun notes with alarm. By engaging in combat here, you are jeopardising –}

{I _said_ , get away from my friend!}

More lightning bolts flew through the air, and 9748 flew backwards to avoid them, away from Saten. Just as planned.

{Railgun, what are you doing?!} Saten cried out to Mikoto, ducking down and putting her forehooves over her head.

{Saving you, now get out of here!}

{Saving _me_? But –}

{Go!}

Mikoto didn't give Saten a chance to follow her instructions, instead galloping at her clone, loosing more bolts to keep up the pressure.

9748 reviewed her standing orders. Her creators hadn't focused much on self-preservation, mostly because they saw her in much the same was a normal pony would see a tissue – something you would naturally toss aside the moment it was 'used'. Nonetheless, there had been instructions for her to avoid needless confrontation, so she put her wings to their intended use and began to fly away.

{Oh no, you aren't getting away!}

The twitching of the bolts in 9748's fur let her know about the approach of further bolts from the Original even without looking. She rolled to the side to avoid them.

{First you tell Railgun to move, now you want her to stay? You are being very inconsistent, Railgun notes casually.}

Maybe it was because it was an _Ad Hoc_ encounter rather than a fully-predetermined battle, but 9748 felt freer with her tongue than any of her sisters ever had in battle.

Another bolt was loosed, but 9748 could tell from the twitching of the bolts that it was pass overhead, missing her completely.

{Is your aim really that bad, Railgun notes while wondering if she was really cloned from such a pony?}

{If you want to talk about disappointments, how about the local weather team? After all, they're the ones so lazy they _left a spare cloud out_ _where anypony could get_ _at_ _it_.}

{Eh, Railgun cries in confusion?!}

Mikoto's bolt of lightning had definitely missed 9748… but it had hit the lone cloud that had placed sometime since Rainbow had cleared the skies yesterday morning. 9748 looked up just in time to see the cloud spark with excess electricity, before suddenly disgorging ten more bolts of lightning down to the earth.

When it was a single bolt from behind, 9748 could roll or dive out of the way. When it was a scattershot from above, no direction would save her, not even hovering in place. One bolt slammed into her right wing, and other into her barrel. Pegasus magic kept the bolts from passing inside her body, but the distinct smell of burning feathers and fur suddenly filled the air, and 9748 plummeted from the sky.

With a meaty -thud-, 9748 hit the ground on her side, her fur slightly charred and smoking. She lifted her head slightly to find the Original standing over her downed body, her expression stormy.

{What were you doing with my friends?} The Original demanded.

{JD83JG9D7H49F7SH3UD7… Railgun requests a –}

{Don't give me that!}

The Original picked up 9748's head with her forehooves and shook her roughly. {I know you've been attacking ponies!} She demanded. {But why? Who made you, and what are they up to? Answer me!}

"S-stop!"

Mikoto looked up.

The population of Ponyville had stepped out of the sidelines. Earth ponies of every colour and build surrounded her. The local pegasi quickly swooped in to take away the cloud she'd exploited just before. The few unicorns native to the area stood behind the others, horns charged.

An earth pony with dark pink fur, and a Cutie Mark of three flowers, stepped forward from the crowd, her gait _almost_ steady. "I d-don't know what's going on here, but get off her!"

"…eh?" Mikoto said, blinking. She looked down, to find herself nearly throttling a pony who had been laid helpless from her electrocution.

"Ah!" She cried, jumping backwards and away from 9748. The ponies behind her flinched as though struck, retreating to keep their distance. One unicorn lost control of her horn in her fright, discharging a spell uselessly into the air. Shivering slightly, she hurried to recharge her horn.

"Wait wait wait!" Mikoto cried. "You don't understand! She was sent here to hurt my friends!"

{Railgun…?}

The crowd parted slightly to allow Saten to trot out.

{S-satin? Oh, right, you don't speak Equish… um, this is an evil clone of me, sent here to hurt you…!} Mikoto felt herself growing flustered, extremely uncomfortable with the image of herself she could see reflected in the frightened eyes of the onlookers.

Saten swallowed. {No she isn't.}

Mikoto blinked. {E-eh?}

{She isn't evil.} Saten took a nervous step forwards, then another. {I thought she was you, sure, but now that I think about it, I don't think she ever claimed to be. And she never tried to hurt us. All she did was play around with us!}

{But she hurt Sparkle!}

{I don't know what happened there, but…} Saten was nearly nose-to-nose with Mikoto now {But I've only seen one pony hurt another one since I got here…!}

Mikoto stared back into Saten's eyes, then suddenly spun around to stare down at 9748. All of a sudden, the clone didn't look like a vague mass of malevolence anymore. Instead, she looked just like a _living, breathing pony_.

9748 lifted her head from the ground, her movements slightly weak. {Do not worry, big sister. Even if I am rendered nonfunctional, I am easily replaced, so you shouldn't get in trouble.}

Mikoto stared back down at her clone, her eyes suddenly filled with panic.

{Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!}

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of Ponyville…

With a bright flash, Kuroko and her passengers reappeared. Index, Applejack, Uiharu fell to the ground (having just been tackled by Kuroko, falling from the sky), while Pinkie continued to convulse.

"Land Sakes!" Applejack swore. "What in Sam Hill is going on 'round here?!"

{S-stagehand?!} Uiharu stuttered.

{I can explain everything.} Kuroko said, making calming motions with her forehooves.

The patch of air behind the group shimmered like a mirage, and Touma was ejected out of it as though thrown from a catapult, crashing into the building before them.

Kuroko froze. {…everything except that.}

{'s okay, everyone.} Touma groaned as he shakily got to his hooves, his eyes spinning slowly in their sockets. {The beavers are all gone now.}

The girls all shared uncertain glances.

{Also, if we ever meet a pony named Starlight Glimmer, Time Turner says to give her a solid buck in the hindquarters and tell her not to muck around with time travel.}

By silent agreement, the girls turned away from Touma. {Why is Railgun acting so weird? And why is there more than one of her?}

{Wait, what's this about there being more than one of the Bug-Zapper?} Touma asked, his eyes starting to focus again. The girls ignored him.

{Something or somepony has created a clone of Sissy. Sissy's expecting a fight, so she wanted me to get you out of there while she confronted her.} Kuroko told what little she knew.

Uiharu blinked. {Um. Wait. Somepony cloned Railgun, and you're okay with that?}

Kuroko looked back at Uiharu, then suddenly grabbed her cheeks with her forehooves. {Agh, that's right! Whoever's doing this is negating Sissy's uniqueness! But! On the other hand, if there's more of Sissy to go around, I should be able to have one all to myself, right? Ack, but it wouldn't be the _real_ Sissy! No! I must remain pure! But why must I be tested like thiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssss!}

Uiharu cringed. {That's… not the reaction I expected, but I probably should have…}

A -sniffle- off to the side of the group brought everypony's attention back to Pinkie, who had finally stopped convulsing. Her every-present smile had somehow left her face, and entirely out-of-character tears were welling up in her eyes.

"Pinkie!" Applejack gasped, rushing over to the other mare. "Land Sakes filly, what's wrong?"

Pinkie looked up at Applejack, the first tear falling down her face. "S-something's about to happen. Something _really_ bad."

* * *

The crowd of ponies that had surrounded Mikoto and 9748 now started to dissipate. The atmosphere had turned from one of violence and danger to anguish and regret, so the onlookers suddenly found themselves making excuses to leave. Some were leaving to get ponies from the hospital, some to get a guardpony, and some just felt that they were no longer needed.

One sleep-deprived mare, however, moved towards the scene instead of away from it. The ponies she passed suddenly found themselves giving her a wide berth.

"Alright." Twilight Sparkle smiled, one eye twitching and tiny purple sparks flying from her horn. "Which one of you is the clone?"


	7. Name unknown

"Luna?"

"Five more minutes, Cele." Luna murmured, shifting one wing over her head to shield herself from annoying sisters.

There was a soft laugh from above, and a gentle push on her shoulders. "Luna." Celestia's voice insisted. "We're nearly there."

Luna shifted her wing and opened one eye slightly.

It was late afternoon, and the sky-chariot was moving though the air as smoothly as a boat on calm water.

The sight of her sister standing before her, smiling without a care in the world, made Luna wonder for a moment if one of the Nightmare Forces had regained a spine and tried to torment her with visions of things lost to her.

There was a sigh from above, and a hoof was extended down to help her get to her hooves. "Honestly, Luna. I've been awake for longer that you have. Just a little longer, okay?"

The sight of Celestia acting like nothing had happened made Luna wonder if the past thousand years had been the dream instead. But as the sky-chariot cleared the clouds, it wasn't the Castle of the Two Sisters that came into view.

"…is that Canterlot?" Luna asked, recognising the mountain it was on rather than the actual city.

Celestia cleared her throat. "After you… well, left, I moved out of our old castle and built another one here."

Luna turned back to her sister. "What was wrong with our old castle?"

Celestia fidgeted nervously. "Do you remember why we built it in the Everfree?"

"So that ponies wouldn't come and bother us all the… oh."

They had built it to be alone together. Not alone period.

The two pegasi in golden armour dipped down, drawing the sky-chariot down towards the castle below. Luna noted that they were heading for a balcony at the back of the castle, rather than the front entrance that was choked with ponies demanding answers. She let out a grateful sigh. She didn't feel like dealing with those questions for a while.

The guardsponies slowed to a stop in front of the balcony with a grace that made Luna wonder how many hours they had practised that manoeuvre. Celestia stepped off the sky-chariot, then turned to offer Luna a hoof getting over herself.

Luna flushed with slight indignity, but took the hoof and stepped off herself. The two pegasi took this as their cue to leave, flying off to parts unknown.

"The bedrooms are just ahead." Celestia promised. "I made sure to retrieve all of your –"

"AND JUST _WHERE_ HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

Celestia's mane was momentarily blown of to one side with the force of the scream, and Luna blinked at the third pony waiting for them in the hallway.

Her fur was a light pink, and her mane was a triple-tone cream-pink-blue. She wore a golden tiara, amulet, and shoes. Most importantly, she also had two wings and a horn.

"Ah." Celestia swallowed nervously. "Hello Cadance."

"'HELLO'? THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY TO ME? YOU'VE BEEN MISSING OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH FOR _HOURS_ , THE SUN DIDN'T COME UP, PONIES HAVE BEEN SWARMING ME ASKING WHERE YOU WERE –"

Well, at least Luna knew that the Royal Canterlot Voice hadn't vanished in her absence.

"Who is this pony, sister?" She asked Celestia when Cadance paused to inhale.

Cadance swallowed whatever she was going to yell next, instead focusing on Luna for the first time. "'Sister'?"

Celestia nervously cleared her throat. "Cadance, this is your Aunt Luna."

"'Aunt'?!" One of Luna's eyes twitched. Come to think of it, Cadance's fur looked much like Celestia's had when she had been young…

"I'm adopted." Cadance corrected Luna's thought process curtly. She then turned back to Celestia and resumed screaming. "AUNT LUNA WAS COMING BACK AND YOU DIDN'T BRING ME ALONG? WE COULD HAVE HAD THIS WRAPPED UP HOURS AGO!"

Some bubble of Nightmare Moon's ego must have remained, because Luna found herself scoffing. "Oh, is that so?"

Cadance glared at Luna, black circles of stress under her eyes. "It is."

Luna tilted her head, one eyebrow rising. "What would you even have done against the Queen of Eternal Night?"

"I would have made you love Aunt Cele again." Cadance said matter-of-factly.

Luna waited for the punchline, but Cadance didn't continue, and Celestia just awkwardly shuffled her forehooves.

Luna leaned slightly to one side to get a better look at Cadance's Cutie Mark. It was the Crystal Heart.

Luna took one step back from Cadance, thought about it for a second, then took a second one.

Celestia cleared her throat again. "Luna, why don't you go on ahead? I think that Cadance still has a great many things she would like to say to me."

"OH YOU BETTER BELIEVE I DO! I HAVEN'T EVEN MENTIONED ALL THE STRESS POOR SHINY'S BEEN UNDER –"

As mildly entertaining as it was to watch Celestia get chewed out, Luna decided to take her sister up on her suggestion. The night had been long, and the next few nights were guaranteed to be even longer. It was best to get some sleep while she could.

It was easy enough to figure out which room was intended for her – it had a crescent moon symbol on the door, and sat across the hall from another door with a symbolised sun. Luna turned the handle with a quick act of magic and walked in.

It was close enough to her old room from the Castle of the Two Sisters. Most of the room was taken up by a huge four-poster bed, with a wardrobe sat on one side and a study desk on the other side, facing the window.

Luna weighed up investigating all the nooks and crannies in the room versus just going to sleep now, and had her decision made for her when a yawn interrupted her pondering. Sleep it was then.

With a flap of her wings and a heave of her back hooves, Luna jumped onto the bed, letting it's soft plush envelope–

A sharp piece of metal jabbed into her side.

"YEOWCH!" She yelled, jumping right back out of the bed again. She grew a foot taller and her mane darkened several shades before she was able to cancel the automatic transformation. "We are betrayed! An assassin lurks in the castle!" The shock also appeared to have reverted her speech patterns by several centuries.

After a few more moments of cursing and of rubbing the new sore spot on her hide, Luna finally re-approached the bed to find the offending item that had given her such a surprise.

To her surprise, a diary or journal of some kind had been stashed under the covers. The metal lock on the side had been what had jabbed into her.

Luna glared at the offending book. "What is such a tome doing in our room?" The lock shattered after only a moment of Luna forcing it, and the book flopped open on the bed. To her surprise, Luna recognised her sister's writing style.

 _Starswirl says he won't help me. He thinks that if the Elements have made it so, we shouldn't fight it. Stupid old codger. How is giving Luna a thousand years to stew supposed to help anypony? Looks like I'm on my own._

Luna blinked, before turning the page with a wing.

 _Something's preventing me from teleporting directly there, even with a potion of long-jump. I don't know if it's something the Elements or Luna did, or if that's just plain too far to teleport, but it looks like I'm going to have to head up there the old fashioned way._

The entry after that read:

 _...Starswirl was right. I can't fly nearly fast or high enough to reach the moon, and my control over it isn't nearly good enough to bring it closer._

 _Why is this so hard? I just want to see my sister again, not that_ thing _from my nightmares._

Luna felt a pang of guilt. One of the first things she'd done after being banished to the moon was to hijack the Nyx's dream-making magic to get into Celestia's dreams. She'd tormented her with visions of her former self saying that Celestia had abandoned her. Celestia had been able to fight back and burn out the connection with the Magic of Love, so Luna thought that she'd been unaffected by it…

 _Well, if Starswirl thought I'd give up now, he shouldn't have shown me his magic mirrors. Seeing the other Luna in the reflected world has given me an idea…_

The next few pages were filled with spell notation, but after that…

 _The mirrors keep breaking when I fire them at the moon. I can't wrap them in protective spells because their own enchantments are too delicate, but the moon's atmosphere is too thin to rely on parachutes. I can't use a free-form portal either, because the alternate Pony of Shadows is still waiting to hijack them!_

 _There_ has _to be a spell that can get me to the moon!_

Luna skipped ahead a few pages.

 _My future self was waiting for me when I 'skipped ahead'. She told me it wasn't worth it, and banished me back to my time._

… _what does_ she _know. She's already_ done _her waiting._

And beneath that, in considerably fresher ink:

 _Indeed I have._

Most of the rest of the journal was filled with crossed-out scribbles, desperate ideas that Celestia had had and discarded. The dates between entries showed Luna that Celestia had originally had one serious attempt to reach the moon each week. But as new ideas became rarer and rarer, the dates between entries became further and further apart – weeks apart, then months apart, then years.

The final page of the Journal, dated a little over four hundred years ago, was blank except for one line:

 _Would the seal break if the Elements were broken?_

The paper underneath had never tasted ink, but there were cockled patches underneath it that made Luna quite sure that Celestia had cried onto the page.

"My goodness, Cadance had quite a lungful for me. I really must have worried her something fierce… oh."

Luna looked up to find Celestia standing in the doorway, her eyes flickering between the journal Luna was reading and her new larger and darker body.

"I'd forgotten that I'd left that in here." Celestia said quietly.

"Sister…" Luna struggled to find words to explain what she was feeling. Celestia clearly _hadn't_ destroyed the Elements (otherwise the power of the Tree of Harmony would be broken and the Everfree Forest would currently be spreading across the land unstoppably) but the fact that she'd even _considered_ doing so… "Why?"

"Why?" Celestia looked confused for a moment, then seemed to understand what Luna meant. "Luna, you're my _sister_." Celestia's mouth assumed the form of a smile that was tired, sad, and triumphant all at the same time. "Of course I'll do whatever I have to in order to save you."

* * *

"S-sparkle?" Misaka stammered. "W-what are –"

"Oh, so you're the real one." Twilight stopped walking and began to charge a spell on her horn. "I'll get rid of the clone now."

"Get rid of…?" Misaka repeated blankly, then realisation hit and her eyes widened. "Wait –"

Twilight didn't wait, firing the anti-clone spell at 9748.

There was the sound of a thunderclap alongside the sizzle of the beam-like spell. A small explosion rang out along the road, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Then a gust of wind blew the smoke away, revealing 9748 still lying on the ground. Misaka was standing over her, her wings bustling with lightning bolts just like the ones she'd just used to intercept the anti-clone spell.

Confusion warred with exhaustion for control of Twilight's face. "Why did you do that?"

"I said wait!" Misaka said, her fur beginning to make -zap-zap-zap- noises as the bolts stored within it began to surface and rub against each other.

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "Wait for what?"

"For us to figure out what's going on!" Misaka yelled.

The twitching in Twilight's eye suddenly become much worse. "I would love to figure out what's going on. I've been _trying_ to figure out what's going on all day. For some reason, nopony else seemed to _care_ until _just now_."

Saten, who'd been standing off to one side with a look of steadily escalating horror, spoke up. {Sparkle…?}

"And it will be a lot easier to see the big picture once I've filtered out the _meaningless noise!_ " Twilight's horn and eyes began to glow a solid purple.

Misaka's eyes shot open, her wings only just behind them. She wrapped her forehooves around 9748's shoulders and jumped off the ground, her wings straining with the weight.

Twilight was shifting her aim upwards when Saten suddenly tackled her from the side, causing the anti-clone spell to discharge instead into a fruit stand off to the side of the road. The watermelon hit by the spell suddenly swelled up to three times its original size, before breaking apart into a puff of smoke and a field of shimmering energy that flew off in the general direction of the Everfree Forest.

Saten and Misaka stared at the fruit stand with mouths agape and eyes wide.

Twilight growled unintelligibly, the purple haze of her magic still covering her eyes. She disappeared from under Saten in a flash, reappearing on the roof of a building behind where Misaka was flying.

{Look out!} Saten screamed, and Misaka banked just in time to avoid the spell that flew past on the left.

Twilight disappeared in another flash, and Misaka shot through the air, trailing sparks in her wake. The chase was on.

* * *

Touma was really getting sick and tired of being left out of the loop. {Seriously, what's this about somepony cloning off the Bug-Zapper?} He demanded quietly to Index.

She flicked an ear at him to show she was listening, but didn't turn her head from watching the others trying to calm down Pinkie. {There's definitely at least three of them, including the actual Short-Hair.} She explained back, just as quietly.

Touma went pale as he imagined three Misakas, all crackling with electricity and demanding that he face all three of them at once. {What mad-mare would do that?!}

{It probably wasn't on purpose.} Index shrugged, an action far more noticeable when on all fours. {Nopony's ever invented a proper cloning spell. The only way to achieve that effect is with the magic of something like the Everfree Forrest.} She paused for a second, thinking. {Come to think of it, the Mirror Pool is only a short walk from here…}

{So… Bug-Zapper fell in a magic pool…?}

{Oh, definitely not.} Index refuted immediately. {If she had, her clone would have been a _mirror image_ – the bangs on the left side of Short-Hair's head would have been on the right side of her clone's, and vice versa. The clone's bangs were completely different.}

Touma blinked. {You remember _exactly_ what Bug-Zapper's bangs look like?}

{I have perfect recall.} Index said, like it was no big deal.

{So, um, is the clone going to disappear when it runs out of magic or something? Turn into smoke or whatever?}

Index turned to give Touma a funny look. {What? No. Building a spell that worked like that would be far more complicated and inefficient. It's far easier to just _create_ your desired outcome than it is to continuously sustain it in a state of half-existence.}

{…so, Bug-Zapper's clones are here to stay?}

{Most likely.} Index tilted her head. {The clones didn't seem like time-clones, and the seal on Chaosville will hold as long as Discord's does. While it isn't the Mirror Pool that's behind this, it probably works in the same way.}

Touma felt the blood drain out of his muzzle, his mental image of three Misakas looming larger, and their zap-zap-zap getting fiercer. {Um, how do ponies normally deal with Mirror Pool clones?}

{They don't.} Index said bluntly. {It got to be such a big problem that eventually Silvershine Cycles invented a spell to send the clones back to the Mirror Pool.} Index frowned. {That said, she really didn't think that through. Ponies figured out rather quickly that it didn't send things _back_ to the Mirror Pool, it just sent them there – it worked even on things that hadn't come from there in the first place.}

Touma blinked, his triple-Misaka daydream (day-nightmare?) suddenly interrupted by a thought. {Wait, so what stops ponies from using this spell on ponies they don't like?}

{Nothing.} Index said, again bluntly. {There's no telling how many ponies are trapped inside the Mirror Pool, unable to be released as nothing can reflect their image.}

{Where did you say this pool was again?}

* * *

"Sparkle, please listen to me! Something weird is going on!"

Twilight responded to that request with an inarticulate scream of rage, and Misaka was forced to dive to avoid a trio of anti-clone spells.

 _She's completely lost it!_ Misaka thought.

"Railgun does not understand, Railgun says, confused." 9748 said in her usual monotone, dangling from Misaka's grasp.

"Kinda busy here!" Misaka responded, the lightning bolts in her fur standing up as she tried to summon clouds to shield her. _Nothing's responding – did they seriously clear the whole sky?!_

"You were unconcerned with Railgun's well-being before, Railgun points out. Why are you now fighting on my behalf?"

"Seriously? You want to talk about this _right now_?!"

In a dizzying display of magic, Twilight teleported to five different spots around Misaka in rapid succession, firing an anti-clone spell off each time. All but one of the spells were aimed to miss, but that just made dodging the one aimed to hit extremely dangerous. Misaka was forced to intercept the spells with lightning bolts, which – _as a pony –_ she had a limited supply of.

"Look, I don't know how to feel about you!" Misaka yelled, diving down between two buildings to limit the angles that Twilight could attack from. "Everything's been happening so fast today – I haven't had a chance to sit down and sort out my thoughts! But, if I had to put my feelings into words right now, I guess I'd say…"

Twilight appeared behind the two, as Misaka thought she would. She kicked off the side of the building so that she moved out of the spell's path, but also so that she flew _at_ Twilight, rather than away from her. Reacting in surprise, Twilight raised a forcefield that the two physically identical pegasi bounced off of, sending them out of the alley and back into the open sky.

"I'm… look, I'm sorry for hurting you." Misaka said. "I thought you were something you weren't. Now I don't know _what_ you are. But I don't think you should explode for it!"

Misaka banked to avoid a wooden cart that Twilight had telekinetically thrown at them, frantically trying to climb as they were too close to the ground to dive again. The anti-clone spell hidden behind the cart would have hit her if she hadn't half-expected it, but she was still forced to fire a lightning bolt at it as it was too close to dodge.

"…Railgun's production value is one thousand eight hundred bits. That is the value of her life, Railgun explains." The wooden cart just thrown at them casually cost more to make then she did. "Her memories are backed up in the Network, distributed amongst the brains of over ten thousand Sisters. Nothing of value would be lost if she were to –"

"You really think that Satin and the others will be happy with a lame excuse like that?!"

9748 looked up at the Original as she frantically dodged the incoming spells. She didn't see what that had to do with anything. If they wanted to play with 'her' again, any of her sisters would do exactly as well as she would.

The Original was fit, but not overly so. 9748 could see the strain that the high-speed manoeuvring (with the added handicap of carrying a passenger) was taxing her endurance. She had to be nearing her limit already.

This was not a simple game of keep-away. Anything hit by the anti-clone spell would be reduced to a state that could not be considered 'alive'. And 9748 couldn't help but note that every time the Original dived to prevent her being hit by the spell, she was, however briefly, putting herself in the path of the spell.

The Original… no, her big sister… was worth more than one thousand eight hundred bits. She could see it in the eyes of her big sister's friends, when they had gotten the two of them confused.

With a hard yank, 9748 pulled herself out of Misaka's grasp and began to fall back down towards the earth.

9748 heard a sharp, panicked gasp from her big sister, but her eyes were locked on Twilight Sparkle, who made a growling noise that to 9748's ears sounded like 'finally'.

Misaka dived. Twilight fired her anti-clone spell one last time.

* * *

As the smoke of the anti-clone spell started to clear away, only one pegasus silhouette could be seen. The purple haze over Twilight's eyes finally faded, the unicorn panting heavily with the strain of the rapid and sustained spellcasting.

The sound of thudding hoof-beats proceeded Saten as she galloped into the street, Uiharu, Kuroko, Applejack and a strangely wet-eyed Pinkie right behind her. {There! There she is!}

Although not understanding the actual words Satin was saying, Twilight waved them over. "It's okay! The clone's gone now!"

She turned back to Misaka, staring with eyes wide and mouth agape at the space her clone had formerly occupied.

"And now that that's dealt with," Twilight continued "we can get back to figuring out what's going on with that portal in the forest!"

Applejack and Pinkie shared an uncertain look, and Saten stepped forward, her mouth opening –

"You are wrong, Railgun says quietly."

Abruptly, there was complete silence. Everypony's expressions slowly changed to looks of absolute horror, none more that Kuroko's, as they all turned to look at 'Misaka'.

"W-what?" Twilight stammered out.

'Misaka's eyes slowly lifted from staring at the ground to staring Twilight in the eyes. "You missed, Railgun says, feeling no desire to elaborate further."

"'Missed'?" Kuroko said in a shrill voice. "Missed with what?! Where's Sissy?"

9748 didn't answer her. She turned her back on the others, snapped her wings open, and flew off; not once looking back.

Not even bothering to teleport, Kuroko simply jumped bodily at Twilight, knocking her to the ground. Kuroko grabbed Twilight's head with both forehooves, and began to shake her roughly. "WHERE'S SISSY?!"

"She's… I…" Twilight swallowed, wilting under Kuroko's increasingly furious gaze. "I was only trying to…"

"ONLY TRYING TO WHAT?! WHERE IS SHE?!"

-snif- "S-something terrible's just happened, hasn't it?"

In it's own way, seeing Pinkie being so out-of-character and sad was almost as freaky as having Kuroko scream in her face.

Applejack put a hoof firmly on Kuroko's shoulder. "Put 'er down, sugarcube."

Kuroko switched her furious gaze to the farmpony. "Not until she tells me where Sissy is!"

"Ah'll be surprised if she can remember her own name with you shakin' her like a dog with a chew-toy." Applejack countered. "Put the mare down."

Kuroko glared at Applejack for a few more moments before releasing her grip on Twilight, who collapsed to the ground, not even trying to catch herself. She stared directly upwards, the full impact of what she had done fully sinking on.

"Where's Sissy, Sparkle?!" Kuroko growled.

Twilight's breath was now coming in short, jagged gasps. "She… she…"

"Yes?" Kuroko pressed.

Suddenly, Twilight's eyes widened so much that Applejack was worried that her eyes were going to pop out. "The clone!"

"What?" In response, one of Kuroko's eyebrows suddenly lifted so high it nearly left the confines of her face.

Twilight shot to her hooves. "Which way did the clone go?!" She looked up and down the street frantically for signs of 9748.

"Why?" Kuroko and Applejack said together.

"We can get her back!" Twilight said. "We just need something that will cast Railgun as its reflection!"

"'Back'?!" Kuroko exclaimed. "Where exactly did you send her, Sparkle?!"

"She went that way." Pinkie pointed, wiping her nose on a foreleg.

"Tha' way leads back to the forest." Applejack observed.

"She's going back to the _other side_!" Twilight yelped. "Quick, we have to catch her!"

The three Equestrian native mares galloped off, leaving the three Neighpon mares watching them go.

{Um, Stagehand?} Uiharu asked, her and Saten not having understood a word of the whole confrontation. {What's going on?}

Kuroko narrowed her eyes. {We're going after them for now.}

Uiharu and Kuroko galloped off in the same direction as the others, leaving just Saten standing in the street.

She took one more fear-filled look up and down the street, the fresh memory of an exploding watermelon large in her thoughts.

{Please be alright, Railgun…} She whimpered, before finally galloping off after everypony else.

* * *

9748 couldn't have had more than a few minutes head-start, but there was no sign of her the whole way back to the hole in the forest floor.

"Wha' now, Twilight?"

"We have to go after her!"

Six mares jumped into a hole in the Everfree Forest, and six girls flew wildly out of a similar hole in Academy City and collapsed on the ground in a heap.

Soundlessly, Kuroko teleported herself out of the tangle of limbs, reappearing just off to one side. She then stood up and crossed her arms. "Now what, Sparkle?"

Twilight untangled herself from the others the normal way, saying as she did so "Same as before! We have to find Misaka's clone!"

"Um, girls?" Pinkie said, inspecting the patch of dirt just in front of her face. "Were these tyre tracks here when we were here last?"

Twilight span around frantically to look at the tracks in the rapidly fading sunlight. "What? No, no, no!"

{Uiharu.} Kuroko said in a commanding tone of voice.

Without even bothering to get off of the ground, Uiharu had produced a hacked portable video game console from a pocket. Her thumbs made a -click-, -click-, -click- noise as they danced across the controls. {According to the security cameras, Misaka's clone was picked up just a minute ago by a truck with tinted windows. I'm trying to trace it, but someone's flagged its metadata as classified… give me a second to bypass the protections.}

{Um.} Saten said, getting up herself. {Wouldn't that mean that the higher-ups of the city were waiting for someone to arrive here?}

{…} Kuroko narrowed her eyes.

{Got it!} Uiharu announced. {It's parked in a warehouse not far from here!}

{Great.} Kuroko said, memorising the address and grabbing the back of Twilight's shirt. "Let's go, Sparkle."

"What? Wait –"

Headless of her passenger's objections, Kuroko flung the two of them into a series of rapid teleports that sent them soaring across the sky.

* * *

"Tarnation!" Applejack cursed, as the remaining four girls ran to the location Uiharu had pinpointed. "I got a real bad feeling 'bout those girls leaving us behind…"

-sniff- "I-I've got a worse one."

Applejack looked behind herself with surprise on her face. "Pinkie? I thought ya were getting better back there!"

"You r-remember how I said that something bad was going to happen?"

"Yeah? That was whatever happened to Misaka, right?"

"T-that's just it. I don't think the _really_ bad thing has happened yet."

* * *

Kuroko didn't bother trying the door of the warehouse, or even landing on the ground. She simply teleported herself and Twilight in through the ceiling.

If Twilight had been thinking clearly, she would have noticed that Kuroko did that without knowing the internal layout of the building. By teleporting in blind, she was running the very real risk of reappearing inside of a solid object. The fact that she was taking such risks meant that she was almost as panicked as Twilight, if not more.

As it happened, though, both girls appeared safely in the third dimension in an unobstructed space. As excepted of a warehouse, most of the space inside was empty. In fact, the shelving units that had been occupying the warehouse all appeared to have been violently shoved against the sides of the warehouse as if by the hands of a giant.

Standing in the middle of the warehouse was an albino Japanese boy wearing grey pants and a black shirt with white jagged lines.

Currently, he was holding 9748 up by the neck.

Her neck covered with blood.

Twilight's scream and Kuroko's loud gasp drew the attention of the boy, who turned his head to face the two new arrivals. {Eh? Who's this? What are you doing in here?}

{What…?} 9748 said, not even having the strength to narrate herself. She weakly lifted her hands up to grab the boy's hands on her throat. {No, you mustn't be here…!}

"W-what are you doing?! Get away from her!" Twilight yelled, Kuroko yelling something similar in Japanese. Nails appeared in Kuroko's hands, and a purple glow encased Twilight's.

"Alright, alright." The boy said casually. "I was pretty much done _playing around_ with this one anyway."

There was a series of -crack-s, -pop-s and an overarching wet tearing noise.

Even though they were watching it happen, it still took the two girls several horrified moments to realise that the boy had somehow ripped 9748 in half.

Vertically.

"Now then." The body said, dropping the _two halves_ , and dusting off his _strangely blood-less_ hands. He turned fully to face the two girls, and even though his posture was slouched, his imposing presence still seemed to fill the whole warehouse.

" _What the **** do you ****** want?_ "

* * *

Far above the clouds, impossible for any of the group to see, _Orihime 1_ sat in geosynchronous orbit above Academy City. Its cargo, the supercomputer known as Tree Diagram, sat and watched.

And calculated…


End file.
